Insult our glorious leaders and be jailed (or worse)

Welcome to Declassified, a weekly column looking at the lighter side of politics.

This week’s Declassified could well be the last not written using a blunt ballpoint pen on prison-issue toilet paper.

It seems that even a mild insult thrown in the direction of a senior European politician can land you in big trouble these days. Polish writer Jakub Żulczyk said this week that he faces charges that could result in a three-year jail sentence for calling the nation’s president, Andrzej Duda, a “moron” on social media.

Duda (who this writer would like to go on record as saying is not a moron) was friendly with former U.S. President Donald Trump (who this writer did describe as a “mangled apricot hell beast,” even at the risk of 10 years in Folsom Prison) and wasn’t exactly overflowing with praise when Joe Biden won the U.S. election.

All (not a moron) Duda could offer was to congratulate Biden “for a successful presidential campaign,” adding “as we await the nomination by the Electoral College, Poland is determined to upkeep high-level and high-quality PL-US strategic partnership for an even stronger alliance.”

Zulczyk wasn’t happy with that response from his country’s (definitely not a moron) president, writing: “Joe Biden is the 46th president of the United States. Andrzej Duda is a moron.”

Thank goodness no harm ever came from criticizing Gerry Adams! The former Sinn Féin president shared a video on Twitter in which he unveiled a “very, very, very special package that we have put together at considerable expense.”

If he’d have uttered those words in the 1970s or 80s, it would have resulted in a massive police operation. But times have changed and he was merely revealing his latest project — “a Uniting Ireland Easter egg.” Adams even quipped: “Let me tell you, even the unionists like Easter eggs.” They do, although they like their chocolate bitter.

Sadly, because of COVID, the chocolate eggs are only available in Belfast, which spares us the sight of boxes marked “A gift from Sinn Féin” stuck on the loading docks of British ports because of Brexit.

What we aren’t being spared, however, is the “Festival of Brexit,” the £120 million brainchild of Theresa May aimed at bringing the country together. The event, which currently has the working title of Festival UK 2022, will, we learned this week, include “a celebration of the British weather.”

Sounds ridiculous but that could be a great idea because, no matter whether you are Tory or Labour, Leaver or Remainer, there’ll always be drizzle.

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“Great news everyone, we’ve secured another two doses of coronavirus vaccine for Europe.”

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Last week we gave you this photo:

Thanks for all the entries. Here’s the best from our postbag (there’s no prize except for the gift of laughter, which I think we can all agree is far more valuable than cash or booze).

“Is this the right AstraZeneca queue? I’m not sure if I am to join the queue for ‘under 65’s’, ‘over 55’s’, ‘abundance of caution’ or head to ‘unused vaccine storage,’” by Chris Middleton

Paul Dallison is POLITICO‘s slot news editor.