| Summary: | Parliamentary elections has always been arousing extreme emotions in Poland.
The 2005 and 2007 elections were widely addressed in the Polish media. Furthermore,
the election campaign and the final election results attracted the attention of the British
press, which was reflected in a number of articles published in the United Kingdom in
2005 and 2007 respectively. The main reason behind interest that the British press had
in the political situation in Poland had to do with large population of Polish emigrants
residing in the UK.
The article is aimed at presenting the standpoint of one of widely-read English dailies
which shapes not only the British foreign policy, but also the British public opinion,
namely “The Guardian”.
Through presenting the profiles of two main political parties running for the 2005
and the 2007 elections in Poland (i.e. Civic Platform as well as Law and Justice), “The
Guardian” did its best to affect the results of the vote. The articles published in the daily
not only described the political parties, but were also aimed at creating the image of Poland
in Great Britain. Depending on the election results, the image of Poland and Poles
was subject to change.
“The Guardian”, British daily dealing with political matters, devoted much
of its attention to parliamentary election held in Poland in Autumn 2005 and 2007.
Before taking a good look at articles published in the newspaper, it is worth presenting
the profile of the daily and political preferences expressed by its journalists.
Originally “The Manchester Guardian”, “The Guardian” was first published
in Manchester in 1821, and since 1961 has been coming out also in London.
At the very beginning a weekly, now it is published Monday through Saturday
and owned by world-famous Guardian Media Group plc., “The Guardian” boasts
of being the first British daily produced entirely in colour. Having in mind the
place and moment in history when it was first published, “The Guardian” is said
to have liberal-democratic character, in other words to be in favour of the political
programme outlined by British Labour Party.
As for parliamentary election, since 1945 “The Guardian” has been a committed
supporter of Labour Party or Liberal Democrats (an exception was election
held in 1951 when the daily backed the candidature of Winston Churchill). Political
sympathy expressed toward liberal parties is reflected in articles published by
the daily. This was also the case with press coverage of two leading Polish political
parties running for election both in 2005 and 2007, namely Law and Justice
(PiS) and Civic Platform of the Republic of Poland (PO).
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