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Sunday 7 September 2008

Problems in Poland

In Poland you can’t get hold of a Polish plumber

Where have all the plumbers gone?

And it stuck. Weeks later, it is still possible to switch on the radio and hear Poles enthusiastically debating the question of ‘can we build Ireland right here in Poland?’ — meaning ‘can we build a permanently booming economy?’ — and if we can, will our cousins return to Poznan? At least this makes a welcome change from previous talk-show and dinner-table topics, which included ‘why the crazy British want our émigrés to throw back the fish they catch in British rivers’ and ‘you can’t believe the edible mushrooms, right there for the taking, in British city parks’ and the endless advertisements for English-language courses, at all prices, for all ages, at all levels, everywhere.

Actually, though, the task is simpler than it sounds. Poland needn’t glue a shamrock to its national flag, or replace the polka with the jig. All the country needs to do is persuade just a few of the million-odd Polish émigrés that if they come back, there are jobs here for them too. And so — on the grounds that just a few of them might be Spectator readers — I would like to issue an appeal to the Poles of the British Isles. On behalf of the harried ladies who work in the bakery on Senatorska Street, of the man who sells ice hockey equipment at the Stegny rink, and of everyone in Western Pomerania who needs a gardener or a plumber: come home! We need you more than they do.

Anne Applebaum is a contributing editor of The Spectator.

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