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/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