Talk:Michał Kamiński

Christian National Union

If anyone's good at translation, there's a sizeable article on Kamiński's former party on the Polish Wikipedia at http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zjednoczenie_Chrze%C5%9Bcija%C5%84sko-Narodowe Timrollpickering (talk) 10:45, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Denis MacShane

Should there be anything on this page about MacShane's allegations against him here? Just wondering...Tessaroithmost (talk) 13:54, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Edits from House of Commons

The Tories were last night accused of a "systematic cover-up" when it emerged that someone at the House of Commons had deleted internet details about a key European ally with a far-right past.

Politically embarrassing information about Michal Kaminski, a Polish politician who now leads the Tories in the European parliament, was removed from Wikipedia by someone in the Commons three days after the alliance was formed.

From: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/oct/18/conservatives-hid-past-european-ally

Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 23:35, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

For the record, it appears to be this edit from 25 June. The information was re-added on 15 July [1]. Rd232 ^talk 11:22, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

And who proved it was from a House of Commons IP address? The Guardian article isn't precise about where it got its information, it doesn't show us any evidence at all. Sadly it therefore lacks credibility as a Wikipedia source. I would have 100% faith in it as a source if it showed us the evidence. Chumchum7 (talk) 11:36, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Moreover, even if someone gets round to conclusively proving it was a House of Commons IP address, which they haven't, nobody has eliminated the possibility that wasn't some bored intern, a researcher, a lobbyist, a security guard or even the most outlandish possibility - that it was a malicious Labour politician.Chumchum7 (talk) 11:48, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Wow, I just did a casual internet search to see if there is more on this. It turns out the UK press said the Americans have raised concerns about the Tories' ties with Kaminski - then the Americans issued a denial that this was the case. The phrase 'don't believe everything you read in the papers' seems more relevant than ever. It is especially relevant to Wikipedia, which has strict guidelines about what editors may establish as fact.--Chumchum7 (talk) 11:59, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

The identity of the IP address is easily established by carrying out a "WHOIS" search [2]. Lamberhurst (talk) 12:03, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely, I know WHOIS and use it myself - but the Guardian report did not cite WHOIS, so unfortunately the report is not a good enough source for a cast iron assertion on Wikipedia. And still, its a gross assumption that a Tory in the House of Commons did it. How have we ruled out a Liberal Democrat? Or anyone else in that building? Assumptions do not fly on Wikipedia, even if they do in the press. One solution is to clearly label it as an assumption, rather than a verifiable fact.--Chumchum7 (talk) 12:29, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Um, I refer you to WP:V, and that the requirement is for verifiable sources. And that in this case, the claim *has* been verified from a second source by checking whois for the IP.

In this case I would have no objection to the Guardian claims about editing from Parliament being stated as a verifiable claim from an accepted source. And that all other major parties have publicly denied making the edits. --Barberio (talk) 13:49, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Incidentally, I'd like to see the counter-cite you have to support your claim that the US Administration denied making negative statements about Kaminski.

On the contrary, I can find a second supporting cite that the US Administration did make negative statements about the Tory links with Kaminski [3]. So unless you can find affirmatively disproving cites, I'm going to go ahead and restore the claims you considered POV. If you can only find cites about 'walking back' the comments to claim they were misquoted or somesuch, then you can add those in addition to the cites of the original comments. --Barberio (talk) 14:03, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Here you go: Asked what was at the heart of US concerns, one UK government official told the Jewish Chronicle it was "the new alliance if the Tories win". An official told the Chronicle that Clinton "was concerned". Yesterday, an official at the US state department denied this, saying "No. It was not raised." From http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/oct/16/conservatives-eu Lets fold it all in. But be prepared for this to snowball. There are 67 Guardian articles on Kaminski this year, and literally hundreds of reader response comments. Meanwhile, Google News searches show almost as many defences of Kaminski plus allegations of a Labour Party (UK)/The Guardian/New Statesman smear campaign. I don't have the time to manage this page if it gets inundated with politically partisan edits. I expect edit warring and a big section on the scandal will be needed. Good luck. I'm outta here.--Chumchum7 (talk) 14:41, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Er... Multiple problems with your comment...

1. This is a denial of comments reportedly made by the Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, not of the comments made in the New Statesman article by un-named Obama Administration officials. These are two separate incidents that you have conflated.
2. 'Reader Response Comments' are not suitable cite sources.
3. If you have authoritative cites of a 'smear campaign', please report them.
4. 'Google News' searches can bring up a lot of authoritative, unverifiable cites which are unsuitable for use on Wikipedia. Such as blog sites and news aggregators.
5. I read this as a threat to 'drown out' the section in verbose references to defence of Kaminski. I hope you did not intend it that way.
6. This is not 'your' article to manage.

Remember, POV does not mean 'Balanced to all political parties'. If something happens that makes one party look bad, even if the other parties are all jumping up and down on it, we should still mention it if it's well cites and supported. I was very careful to make sure that I only reported what the papers printed as claims, not reported what they said as fact. --Barberio (talk) 15:02, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Reading through the cite you provide... It actually does not support your claim that there have been no questions from the US Administration over conservative links to Kaminski. The article actually cites UK officials in the meeting as saying questions over Kaminski were raised in a meeting between the US State Department and UK Foreign Office, and says the US officials deny that those questions were raised.

I'd be happy to add this to the text, but am concerned at your attempt to pass it off as a denial for the New Statesman quotes. Did you read the entire article before you posted this comment? --Barberio (talk) 15:12, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I would not report anything the New Statesman says as fact on this issue - their political correspondent "James Macintyre" has previously been caught out lying about what the White House has said about UK politicians.SE7^Talk/_Contribs 15:34, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Want to provide a cite for that? --Barberio (talk) 15:37, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

not really, since you probably won't agree it is usable, but here you go http://order-order.com/2009/10/09/kaminski-new-statesmans-shoddy-journalism/ SE7^Talk/_Contribs 15:41, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

You are quite correct, I do not consider a blog gossip column to be a cite 'proving' something. Again, I'm waiting for you to demonstrate why The Spectator article should not be mentioned. At this point, I think we should also include The Guardian article about the UK Officials claims and US officials denials in the state department meeting as well. --Barberio (talk) 15:56, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Given that this is the blog that has led to the resignation of more than one Cabinet minister, and the uncovering of the Damian McBride-Derek Draper smear scandal, I tend to believe it more than a partisan magazine, so I reccomend that we leave the New Statesman issue behind. I will add the Guardian story into the article.SE7^Talk/_Contribs 16:01, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I have made the necessary change - I hope that resolves the issue. SE7^Talk/_Contribs 16:16, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

This has been brought up at WP:ANI here and at WP:COIN here. If any editors who have experience editing this article could comment it would be useful. Thanks Smartse (talk) 15:53, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

As per my last post here, I want to stop editing this page almost as soon as I started, and I am only adding comment here in reply to your request. I did a Google News search today around this subject, and it seems extremely controversial with an extraordinarily high degree of recent news coverage, much of which is politically entrenched, much of which I view with a great deal of scepticism. Judging by the amount of traffic out there, many internet users may start working on this page. Here is one news item alleging a smear campaign, although N.B. the author is partisan himself: http://www.thejc.com/comment/analysis/20818/analysis-kaminski-our-friend-a-smear-campaign Consequently I am 'outta here' as I said above, because I think a long term edit war is about to take place, and I don't want to get bogged down into partisan edit disputes. This page needs extremely experienced and non-partisan editors to keep an eye on it, or even to protect it. For the record, I am not politically involved in this subject whatsoever. I don't intend to return to editing this article. Best luck all. --Chumchum7 (talk) 20:21, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Just to let people know, this article says that the author (Stephen Pollard) voted Labour in all six elections he has been eligible to vote in. All the attacks on Kaminski are by Labour-supporting people or representatives. Thus, he is claiming his own side is smearing Kaminski, which I guess could be considered to add weight to his claims. SE7^Talk/_Contribs 21:53, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

COI Declarations

Note. For purposes of WP:COI declaration, my father is an active member of the Liberal Democrats, and has stood for local office. I have no political party membership myself. I would invite anyone else who has any potential COI here to declare it now. --Barberio (talk) 15:05, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Subjective comments about Poland

I deleted the following section from the article: 'According to one commentator, such language is not uncommon in Poland, one of the most Catholic and socially conservative countries in Europe.'

Firstly, this is not an article about come commentator's view on Poland but a biographical note about Mr. Kaminski. Also it is unfair to quote people (without stating their names) only to prove a point - if you want to make a statement that Poland is homophobic, the most Catholic country in Europe and most conservative please provide statistics and reliable data on this.

According to me such language is very uncommon in Poland and I have never heard or seen in public speech. Please stick to facts.

Monika Chodakowska —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mchodakowska (talk • contribs) 18:13, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

The source of that information was from the BBC, a reliable source, and the author was placing Kaminiski's remarks within the context of his society, background and, quite possibly, upbringing. I will reinstate the information into the article if you don't respond here within a day as I believe it to be entirely appropriate for use. Mas 18 dl (talk) 20:24, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

This is the quate from the article you mentioned: 'But this stance is not as controversial in Poland as it might be further West. Poland is perhaps the most Catholic country in Europe, where many people hold conservative social views. It is not uncommon to hear well-educated people refer to gays and lesbians in a derogatory way.' Not sure this is what I call reliable data. saying 'perhaps the most catholic country in Europe' is a bit different to 'most Catholic country'. The rest is based on what - commentator visit to Poland? Any research? Or just subjective opinion? But of course agree with opinions below, thanks for your contribution.

Monika —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mchodakowska (talk • contribs) 21:30, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I agree with Monika Chodakowska. There are tens of thousands of journalists giving their opinion out there, I don't think this one deserves special treatment, and he doesn't add much of relevance anyway. In fact, the journalist is racially stereotyping Poles as bigots. --Chumchum7 (talk) 20:31, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. If this must go back into the article, it should be made clear that it is the perception of one foreign commentator. Lamberhurst (talk) 07:22, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd just like to say, "racial stereotype"? No sir! National stereotyping perhaps, but there is no comment regarding the Polish race. Let's not call each other racists here, or things could get very messy. SE7^Talk/_Contribs 16:15, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

There are precedents of anti-Polish racism that have been identified and prosecuted by UK law, such as case S/123726/06 F603/30 Mr J Lipka v Response Handling Ltd. But I agree, 'national stereotyping' is indeed a more accurate phrase. On that note, when I read around the Kaminski affair in the UK press, I found many, many cases of very ugly stereotyping of Poles as bigots, homophobes, anti-Semites and Nazi collaborators as if it is absolutely fair and accurate to do this. The Stephen Fry remark wasn't an exception but part of a trend. His apology (bless him) was exceptional, and he seems to have admitted his comment came out of some kind of unconscious motivation. This is classic herd behaviour in witch hunts, reminiscent of Two Minutes Hate. It is getting quite hysterical, and The Economist for one has written about it. So it begs the question whether the 'Kaminski affair' should have its own section on the Kaminski page, or even its own Wiki.--Chumchum7 (talk) 16:53, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Latest news: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/oct/22/hague-conservatives-europe-right-wing Chumchum7 (talk) 11:46, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/23/opinion/23iht-edcohen.html Chumchum7 (talk) 15:21, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/6409202/Far-right-Tory-EU-allies-not-on-radar-says-US.htmlChumchum7 (talk) 07:54, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Personal Life

We must be very careful with such a section. I've removed the info about family members (see WP:BLPNAME) and tagged the remainder, because it does not seem contentious material.--M4gnum0n (talk) 10:21, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Clash with MacMillan Scott

Kaminski was severely opposed by Tory MEP MacMillan Scott, who also criticized him in a pamphlet [4]. I guess the article should report this too.--Dans (talk) 20:36, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

illegal BBC World Service broadcasts

The link is dead. Only Polish langauge broadcasts were jammmed, the government didn't care about the English ones, how do you know they were illegal?Xx236 (talk) 06:27, 24 August 2015 (UTC)