The only Ukrainian in the village? (Eng)

My first party conference season is finished and I could only summarise the essential. It didn't start very well. I barely crawled to Bournemouth – voiceless, powerless, full of EU ideas after Warsaw conference. The weather was horrible, B&B not much better – taking a shower caused flood in the room below and a company of two friendly plumbers (non-Polish) afterwards. I spent on taxis more than on food. But still I enjoyed it. Conservatives’ Blackpool was a much better logistical experience: smooth travel, nice weather, acceptable hotel. The event itself wasn’t as much. So a bit opposite pictures, but still nice.

This was though quite a unique experience. There are quite obvious differences between the party conferences of Labour and Conservative even for such dummy as me – those in power and those longing for it. The number of people, the richness of events, the intensity, the confidence; Labour had it all, maybe even too much. Plus overall town of Bournemouth is more pleasant to my Ukrainian taste than Blackpool.

What can I say from my Ukrainian perspective? Brothers and sisters, we have long way to go. Our party culture is still in the Stone Age and a couple of hundred of years are needed to bring it to the heights of the British party standards. Unless we do amazing fast track... I dream about the time when in Ukraine so called politicians stop drifting between the parties every 6 months and party cease changing its ideology before every election (which happens far too often).

I am longing for the time when the discussion in the party conference halls will be around the very practical and important for people issues: urban governance, flexible patterns of work, cohesion of society (this is the crying priority nobody gives a damn about in my country with overheated East-West divide), equality and security, sustainability and personal carbon footprint, future of EU (when we are actually there!)… Just you name. I am also longing for the time when the respect to other human beings will prevail over the desire to throw lots of dirt and critique and abuse in your opponents which is destroying the very narrow bridges of common purpose and common sense.

Well, I was there. Without being too modest, could probably say that there are not that many Ukrainian fellow citizens who managed to be where I was over the last two weeks :-) And just you wait – Brussels are in my menu for the next week!