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Or should we sit chewing our crud in bovine placidity as the police and state prosecution service finally disappears into PiS’s back pocket, soles of their boots and loafers visible to all? Vaclav Havel suggested international observers be sent to monitor elections in Poland when PiS - err, the police - arrested people who were starting to speak out against the party. He was being hysterical, they said: it couldn’t happen here. Now it turns out the police are rounding up opposition activists in connection with alleged election campaign financing irregularities going back two years. Their “investigation” has been going on for nine months but it was felt in ruling State Prosecution/Police/PiS circles that now, coincidentally just before an election, was a good time to move up a gear and begin the mass interrogations. Even right wing law’n'order type Ludwik Dorn is embarrassed, and has suggested the cops ease off.

Yes, it’s good to be back in Poland, where pedestrians are inexorably being pushed off the streets by people handing out leaflets (schools, loans) to pedestrians.

Turning, inevitably, to the papers, I find one intriguing story amongst the usual mire of vituperation and sleaze. Ludwik Dorn, deputy prime minister and minister for the interior, flew into a snot and walked out of a TV programme when at the last minute it turned out that he would be appearing with one Roman Giertych. Dorn criticised the journalist harshly, saying she was not fit to run the show, and threatened that his party would boycott the programme. According to one of the tabloids he even demanded her resignation.

Those of you fortunate enough to be unfamiliar with Polish politics may be wondering who this Roman Giertych is that excites such emotional responses from Minister Dorn. Allow me: Giertych is the minister for education in the same government which Dorn also serves. He is a coalition “partner.” Doubtless Dorn regularly storms out of cabinet meetings, accusing the prime minister of being unfit to run the show, when Giertych turns up unannounced.

The Christmas edition of Polish current affairs magazine Polityka contains a fairly typical look back on the year in photographs. Internationally, the year is sombre to say the least: New Orleans, the London bomb attacks, race riots in Sydney, the earthquake in Kashmir, violence in Iraq… There is no room for levity in the captions.

And then there are the events of the year in Poland. A picture of the Kaczyński twins (one the president of Poland, the other the chief of the ruling party) carries the ironic remark “Poland is again blazing new trails for democracy.” The caption under the picture of a rearing horse bearing a riot policeman breaking up a pro-gay equality demonstration ends with the weary words: “It appears that thinking in this matter has been banned too.” (Poland’s minister for the Interior and Administration, Ludwik Dorn, described the police actions as a “exemplary”.) A photograph of the prime minister, who is widely dismissed as the puppet of his party boss (Kaczyński), bears the legend “…he promises little and keeps his word.”

And so it goes: tragedy in the world at large; mere farce in Poland.