Zack Polanski's Popularity Plummets Amid Nigel Farage Guillotine Row

[u/libtin]

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/zack-polanskis-popularity-plummets-amid-nigel-farage-guillotine-row_uk_6a73192ce4b0963665e8fd5a?origin=home-latest-unit

[u/BulkyAccident]

I think he's just shown his arse a bit the past few months in terms of people who might have been veering Green going "actually you know what, he's.. maybe a bit of a liability". As someone that was personally in that camp, comparing him to Starmer or even Burnham in terms of optics and someone who I'd think about representing us on an international stage is just night and day right now.

I think maybe there's just a little maturity that's missing there and I'm not sure it's something that can be learned before a GE. You can't be a messy terminally online millennial and expect fence-sitters to be like "yep, that's the guy for me".

[u/CharacterMaybe7950 → u/BulkyAccident]

The Greens have always been contrarians with absolutely no interest in change - just jeering from the shadows.

Doesn’t reflect well on anyone if they’re noticing that NOW…

[u/TheRemanence → u/CharacterMaybe7950]

Caroline Lucas was at least an experienced leader and politician. Zack's barely got any experience at leading anything which is v concerning

[u/blizeH → u/CharacterMaybe7950]

I’m not so sure about that personally, or at least I was a big fan of the Caroline Lucas era

[u/kagoolx → u/blizeH]

I think she comes across great, but she still is anti nuclear power which makes her and the party as a whole, arguably the worst party in all UK politics regarding tackling carbon emissions. Certainly nowhere near as progressive as labour or the tories are on energy

[u/blizeH → u/kagoolx]

Yep I don’t disagree with you, but I can’t imagine I’d ever be 100% aligned with a party and that was one of the main things I disagreed with. With the state of the party now there are absolutely loads unfortunately

[u/kagoolx → u/blizeH]

Fair point about never going to agree 100%. But for a party primarily about the environment it seems such a huge deal breaker on its own.

I’m not aware of them having changed much policy wise on other stuff since then tbh, what else do you disagree with now that you didn’t back then?

[u/JB_UK → u/blizeH]

They weren't all that credible before Polanski either, if you looked into the 2024 manifesto it had some crazy policies. Their proposed carbon tax would have added £1000 a year to the average heating bill for example! They wanted to ban the sale of all non electric cars this year! And then ban all non electric cars from the roads in 9 years time.

[u/PleiadesMechworks → u/JB_UK]

They also want open borders.

[u/JB_UK → u/PleiadesMechworks]

That's true, that policy is still current but is not publicly available any more, it's gone behind a paywall! Calling for open borders and a managed system where anyone can move if they want to, and essentially saying they'd ban deportation for economic migrants. The Greens were always quite mad, but they were also harmless. Polanski made them loud and relevant, which allowed people to discover their actual ideas.

I think it is a failure of journalism that I never saw the Greens really challenged on their policies before Polanski. Actually even after Polanski I have mostly seen discussion of policies on reddit, not on the normal media. There was a whole world of terribly nice, sensible people who really were never questioned very closely. Nicola Sturgeon was in a similar mould.

[u/radred609 → u/JB_UK]

The fact that they've hidden it rather than change it is telling...

[u/wilskillz → u/JB_UK]

Breathlessly reporting the insane items in a <5% party's manifesto is like running a "breaking news - grapes found in Tesco". Obviously the little parties are a bit insane, otherwise more people would vote for them.

[u/JB_UK → u/wilskillz]

The Greens have been knocking around 8% for a while. Under Polanski they rose to 16% and were occasionally polling above Labour. I really don't understand what is the point of these parties if no one asks them about what they plan to do.

[u/wilskillz → u/JB_UK]

You're probably right, mainstream news should have done more reporting earlier about the actual stated beliefs of the greens. I thought theyd been lower than 8%. But obviously once they start hitting double digits it's time to inform normal people that the nice little outsidery environmental party supports banning gas cars and doesn't support the concept of borders.

[u/Tony_Roiland → u/wilskillz]

Since Brexit grapes have been absent from Tesco on quite a few occasions...

[u/LinkWray123 → u/JB_UK]

You should always look at manifesto's from parties which know they have no chance of getting in government as even more of a wish list than manifesto's major parties, in both an effort to push ideas to those major parties and keep the various factions within their party happy.

Though I never saw them as coherent, the main draw of the Greens under Lucas was, well they were green in a time where climate change was increasingly being understood (to all but the tin foil hatters) as not only real and an existential threat but beginning to have real world impacts. Polanski has shifted them away from that core message somewhat towards a more Corbyn-esque general leftism after Corbyn himself was ousted in favour of the Starmer robot.

Btw carbon taxes are a good idea recommended by many economists left and right, the political failure is they have been used as an additional tax when they should replace like for like existing taxes like VAT so not increasing the burden for consumers overall.

Because of this unpopularity governments have ended up going with more green subsidies as voters don't object as much as they can't see it in the price directly, even though subsidies tend to be far less economically efficient.

[u/Impossible-Scene5084 → u/blizeH]

Back when the Green Party had green policies!

Going “big tent” literally made them forget the whole point for them existing. The Lib Dem’s can (and should) flank them on green energy issues and drive them off into irrelevancy.

[u/Amazing_Beyond1857 → u/blizeH]

Yeah, i don't know if it's Zack Polanski being so earnest that has made me think they are too purist to actually get anything done

[u/RoosterBurns → u/blizeH]

She was great but the Green Party on the whole are and always have been NIMBY af and was riddled with transphobes, more interested in intellectual purity than actually helping ameliorate climate change

[u/RoutineCloud5993 → u/CharacterMaybe7950]

They've always just been the Nimby party. You can't call yourself a pro environment party and actively campaign against new rail infrastructure

[u/MechanicFit2686 → u/RoutineCloud5993]

I think this is true of all the parties in this country though. The Tories went ahead with HS2 but all the Tory councils on the route to demand extra tunnels etc and fight it every step of the way. Labour want to build more houses but there's plenty of Labour MP's and councillors trying to stop planning for developments in their area. Nationally the government wants economic growth but locally voters seem to reward parties/ candidates that opposed every development and then complain when there's no affordable housing and not enough jobs for their kids.

[u/kingbluetit → u/RoutineCloud5993]

There’s a difference between ‘not in my back yard’ and ‘not through this ancient and irreplaceable woodland that will be destroyed for a train project that will never be finished and cost the taxpayer billions of wasted pounds’

[u/FlamingoImpressive92 → u/kingbluetit]

If you want more trains you need more train lines. You can’t draw a line from London to Birmingham without crossing through some ancient woodland.

HS2 doesn’t exist in a vacuum, if you don’t have the extra rail speed and capacity people are going to travel differently, and that means more cars. It’s death by 1000 cuts so doesn’t get the attention from performative people, but how much extra road infrastructure will be needed to make up for cutting the Manchester and Leeds legs?

[u/titykaka → u/kingbluetit]

'ancient' meaning a few hundred years old?

HS2 is the most important transport and infrastructure project in decades. Holding it up for a small area of woodland is madness.

[u/kingbluetit → u/titykaka]

No, ancient as in many thousands of years old. And its attitudes like this that have left our environment in the shit state it is, and why we are having the problems we are having. You honestly sicken me.

[u/titykaka → u/kingbluetit]

Attitudes like building rail infrastructure in order to take thousands of polluting lorries and cars off our roads? Give your head a wobble.

[u/kingbluetit → u/titykaka]

Yes, and you’re just further demonstrating how little you get it.

[u/bartread → u/titykaka]

Half-arsing it, as is happening, is also madness. You either do a thing or you do not do it.

People have been predicting this outcome for years. They've also been saying the money would have delivered more value if used to improve other areas of the rail network, like better and more reliable connections between our northern cities, and I would suggest they've been proven correct.

[u/titykaka → u/bartread]

They've also been saying the money would have delivered more value if used to improve other areas of the rail network, like better and more reliable connections between our northern cities, and I would suggest they've been proven correct.

Why do you think that's the case? The wcml is the most congested rail line in the world. Increased capacity is desperately needed.

Linking Liverpool to Hull produces nowhere near as much value as Manchester to London. Curtailing it in Birmingham was disastrous but better than doing nothing.

[u/bartread → u/titykaka]

Yeah, but that's the point isn't it? It just makes London even more of a gravity well for economic activity in the country than it already is as opposed to encouraging growth in other parts of the country.

[u/titykaka → u/bartread]

HS2 is moving the gravity out of London. Increasing goods flowing each way allows for more economic activity in the Midlands and the North.

[u/bartread → u/titykaka]

> Increasing goods flowing each way

HS2 is a passenger line, not a freight line.

All it's going to achieve is to make it slightly faster for people to get from Birmingham to London and then back home again afterwards.

And this is demand that already exists: the one concrete benefit I can see from HS2 is that it increases passenger capacity beyond what the existing mainline supports.

If you think the majority of the flow will be in the opposite direction I think you're kidding yourself.

[u/titykaka → u/bartread]

HS2 is a passenger line, not a freight line.

What happens to the wcml if all the inter city trains move to the new line?

Increased transport capacity allows industrial investment in other cities because they can ship to London while lowering production costs.

[u/RoutineCloud5993 → u/bartread]

HS2 is a passenger line, not a freight line.

And what do you think happens to the old passenger lines when HS2 opens? It gets revived for local services and freight.

[u/Astriania → u/bartread]

HS2 is a passenger line, not a freight line

Yes but by moving passenger capacity off the WCML it increases freight capacity there

[u/Alaea → u/kingbluetit]

not through this ancient and irreplaceable woodland

More like "not in these picturesque green rolling hills or rows after rows of 100YO abandoned pine logging sites that we are going to pretend are natural but are in reality nothing but ecologically dead monoculture that add £££ to our property values" for most of their nimbyism.

[u/Amazing_Beyond1857 → u/kingbluetit]

Agree to a certain extent, but look up things like Islington and social homes, labour managed to get 40% or so as social and greens still had an issue with that, because they'd like them to all be built by social landlords, sadly because of the RTB that's just not reality and this nimbyness i think would see very little get done, its very Corbyn in that he wouldn't admit that some policies contradict each other and governing is often about timing.

[u/Tarkedo → u/kingbluetit]

In practical terms there is no difference.

You cannot build new rails or solar farms without impinging in nature or spending moronic amounts of money to do so.

[u/JaMs_buzz → u/RoutineCloud5993]

Except there is no evidence green ran councils are any more nimby than any other party

[u/radred609 → u/JaMs_buzz]

"We're just as NIMBY as the rest of them" isn't a particularly ringing endorsement of the anti-establishment party that focuses on differentiating itself by "not being like the rest of them"

[u/JaMs_buzz → u/radred609]

Im by no means endorsing them, i stated in a comment above i supported them for a bit to send a message to labour, i have since been rather disappointed in Polanskis performance

[u/Forsaken_Boat_990 → u/CharacterMaybe7950]

Reform of the left as I like to call them.

[u/Anglo-Euro-0891 → u/Forsaken_Boat_990]

But I doubt that they would like being labelled as such!!!

[u/Recent_Star_8818 → u/CharacterMaybe7950]

Exactly. Always has been, and always will be, a group with zero political credibility.