Old-new troubles

It may be ludicrous for politicians to describe plans from a pipeline to run from Russia to Berlin as a new version of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, which secretly carved up half of Europe, but it’s probably true that Poland is being deliberately left out in the cold.

-- Mark Mardell (23 Oct).

P.S. 25 Oct: Tim Garton-Ash starts from the remarkable election results in Poland to write an interesting article on the strange fate of political parties across much of Europe. [It's a good piece and it seems churlish to point to small lapse: Garton-Ash writes that the new Poland "will not be driven by anachronistic, 19th-century fears of Germany". Anachronistic, maybe. But 19th-century? As Tom Lehrer sang, "Once all the Germans were warlike and mean, but that wouldn't happen again. We taught them a lesson in nineteen-eighteen, and they've hardly bothered us since then."]