Speaker 1Zach Polanski is under fire. After a bruising
Speaker 2defeat in a by-election, people are asking, are his days numbered as leader of the Green Party?
Speaker 1And does his defeat hand victory to Andy Burnham? Shouldn't the Prime Minister now capitalise on the fall of the Greens and call an early general election? The point about Polanski, I think, is that even on the left, I mean, I appreciate you and I think he's a complete idiot on the right. There are some on the left that just think this guy is a joke. And it's not just about, I can hypnotise you to have bigger boobs. It's not just about, oh, I am calling for the rich to be taxed at every given opportunity, but I can't seem to get my own council tax in order when I'm living in a houseboat. It's also the way that he has handled this Ziazim is racism motion. Tim, it's the only vote that counts. It's important we were all absolutely hooked by it last night. Yeah. I'm talking, of course, about traitors.
Speaker 2Yes, exactly. When you said we need to do a special podcast about the election, that's what I assumed you wanted to discuss. Richard E. Grant's shocking defeat on the traitors after he adopted the unusual tactic of telling everyone that he is a traitor. Now, I would like to see more of this honesty in our politics. Imagine, if Andy Burnham said to the voters, I'm an idiot. Yes. We'd all know where we stand. But what's fascinating is that there were still some people who voted to keep Richard E. Grant on the show, even after he had looked them in the eye and said, I am a traitor. Vote me off.
Speaker 1They thought
Speaker 2it was a glorious
Speaker 1double bluff.
Speaker 2As we have learned so often in politics, sometimes political leaders just tell you what they are and yet people still vote for them. And on that note, the Green Party may well have lost the Holborn and St. Pancras by-election, but they still, depending on who you listen to, Zach Polanski says, tripled their vote. They still came second. And let's be honest, the circumstances were actually working against them. Had he been running against Labour and Keir Starmer was still the leader, he would have been the leader. He would have been the leader hardly unlikely, given that this by-election was triggered by Keir Starmer resigning his seat. But let's do a hypothetical here. Had Zach Polanski been running against a generic Labour candidate with Keir Starmer as leader, I suspect he would have won.
Speaker 1I don't know. Let's look at the numbers. Let's crunch the numbers and then debate that. So the Labour candidate, Sehgal Abdiwali, won with 12,292 votes. That's a 45.1% vote share. Polanski in second with 8,928. That's a 32.8% vote share. Conservatives in third, Reform in fourth, Lib Dems in fifth. Uh-oh. Restore in sixth. And George Galloway of the Workers' Party managed to poll just 314 votes. Gosh, how his star has fallen.
Speaker 2That's worth commenting upon, by the way, because for the last 20 years, George Galloway has been the master at exploiting risks within Labour and exploiting grassroots disaffection. And he has won by-elections by doing that, including on the Israel issue. So the fact that Galloway came so far down the ballot, I think, is very significant. It shows there is, in people's minds, the Greens are now established as the anti-Labour left-wing party. And although this is a defeat, I've got a point when they say this is technically our by-election result. And what Polanski has been saying, don't worry, we'll go on to why he's wrong and a fool. But what he's been saying is people told me on the doorstep, we would normally vote for you, but we're going to vote for Labour this time around because we think Andy Burnham should be given a chance. One other thing to throw in here, it's worth considering that Holborn is quite unusual as Labour London seats go. It doesn't reflect what you think a London Labour seat is like. It's a little bit wealthier. It is young. It's not quite as ethnically mixed. In other words, it's a combination of wealthy white professionals and working class people of colour. It also has a very, very high proportion of people living in rented accommodation. So it doesn't look much like the rest of the country. And when I went to the Green Party, it was striking that Polanski in his big speech really wanted to talk about renters' rights and the cost of living rather than Israel. And he made a point, he actually wanted to avoid his conference altogether. He had spoken about possibly moving it because he felt it was a distraction from him campaigning in the by-election. But I think he really wanted this by-election to be on bread and butter issues. But because his conference passed a motion saying that Zionism is racism, people are going to say that the people of Holborn have said no to Polanski's variety of left-wing
Speaker 1politics. Yes. I mean, I think it should be pointed out that the person who came second last time around after Keir Starmer in 2024 was a robustly pro-Gaza candidate. And there is no competition from that kind of person. I appreciate the Galloway effect, but Galloway represents a lot of other things. And therefore, I think that because the Greens were the one who were on the pro-Palestinian ticket, then they're the ones that gobbled up those votes. However, we can't say in one breath, oh, well, people vote either against Starmer or for Burnham and not take into account the personality of Polanski. So the point about Polanski, I think, is that even on the left, I mean, I appreciate you and I think he's a complete idiot on the right. And it's not just about, I can hypnotize you to have bigger boobs. It's not just about, oh, I, I'm calling for the rich to be taxed at every given opportunity, but I can't seem to get my own council tax in order when I'm living in a houseboat. It's also the way that he has handled this racism motion. And I think he lost a lot of respect because he decided to duck out of that vote at a crucial moment. And it wasn't representative of the whole of the Green Party. If you add up the numbers of those who actually voted, it's less than 1% of the Green Party affiliation. Okay. So on one hand, it's meaningless. But on the other hand, his complete and utter spinelessness in not stating a position on that vote, and then not even attending it to campaign in a by-election that he's just lost, was found wanting. And to her credit, his predecessor, Caroline Lucas, the former leader of the Greens, said on Newsnight, he needs to consider his position. Because if he isn't vicariously responsible for this motion, then who is? And can I also say that this attempt this morning with Nick Robinson, on the Today programme on Radio 4, to sort of try and not take responsibility for this motion, I found weaselish in extreme. We covered a hustings that Zach Polanski attended that was hosted by the British Board of Deputies, a Jewish organisation, during the by-election campaign, where he was openly and actively heckled. Because when he was asked, what is your definition of Zionism? He himself appeared to ignore the definition, or the definition understood by anybody rational in this country, or in Israel, or beyond, and suggested that Zionism was the genocidal persecution of Palestinians. And then we're meant to be surprised that a Zionism is racism motion is passed at conference. So he can't distance himself from this. In the same way that Jeremy Corbyn incubated anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, despite claiming to be a progressive anti-racist, this has all happened on Polanski's watch, and he has to take responsibility for it. And there is a parallel between these two parties now, because the campaign against anti-Semitism has referred the Green Party, as it did Labour in 2019, to the Commission on Human Rights, saying that they're breaching the human rights of Jews because they're discriminating against them. And as the CAA has pointed out, actually, at least Labour under Corbyn never passed a racist motion. The Greens have gone even further.
Speaker 2Mm-hmm. And as happened under the Labour Party, the Greens have clearly been subject to entryism. To characters who are stating quite openly, I have joined this party rather than let the Labour Party, because we're not welcome or we've been expelled, or your party because it's inefficient and going nowhere. We have joined the Green Party because we believe it is a rising force and it is willing to welcome us. So the Greens have been subject to entryism, you're right. The motion passed with very little participation by members and also surprisingly narrowly as well. But entryism is only possible under two circumstances. One is the institution being either so weak that it doesn't wish to police its membership or is willing to take people like that. And the other circumstances is a leadership that signals to entryists this is the you. And that is what Polanski has done, whether he meant to or not. And by running away from that motion, well, it would almost be, I'm not going to say admirable, but it would be more consistent if he had just hung around and voted for it. Yes. Rather than allowing the debate to proceed, avoiding it. And then when asked, how would you have voted? Repeatedly said, I would have voted for the motion had it been amended, but it was not, which is a politician's answer. It's a Richard Nixon answer, right? It's not direct. It's not it's not what we're constantly being sold is so good about Zach Polanski. He talks. He talks from the heart. No, he's giving you a very loyally answer. And then when finally forced by Nick Robinson to be clear and say, logically, therefore, if you could not vote for this motion, because it had it not been amended, that means if you had been present in the hall, you would have voted against it. He said, yes, that is correct. But then when pushed to explain why, came up with this extraordinary explanation, which is that he could not support the motion.
Speaker 1The Conservatives have had a fairly lacklustre conference with a good leadership speech. Kemi is doing well, but her popularity isn't reflected in brand popularity, and therefore they're coasting along on 20%. Now that the Greens are appearing to be tanking, and we've got Dale Vince, I mean, even Dale Vince, eco-warrior Dale Vince, pumping money into the Labour campaign to stop Polanski from winning. You might be saying, as a Prime Minister right now, maybe we should have an early general election.
Speaker 2You might do. And if he doesn't, and at some point in the future he loses, history will judge him as having no judgment because he couldn't see how everything was lining up for him. I push back against that a bit because he's got a budget to do. Andy Burnham has not yet taken any tough decisions. He's only done. He's only done stuff that makes the progressive base feel more comfortable with where Labour is going. And that's why it's attracting votes from the Greens, be it on sanctioning Israeli settlers or putting a cap on bus fares of two pounds. These are relatively cheap, easy wins, the kind of low-hanging fruit that everyone was frustrated Keir Starmer wouldn't pluck. But he now has to do a budget, and he has to explain, and a spending review in the new year, and the 10-year plan. And welfare reform, which is a synonym for cuts, has got to be in there somewhere. I would just say don't rule out the Green Party. At the last local elections, they did very well, including some mayoralties or council leaderships in London. The rise and fall of Polanski has been dramatic, and it speaks to how we live in an age, first of all, of podcasting, in which people are judged perhaps too much. They're judged too much upon their presentation skills, rather than their experience, character, or depth of thinking. But this is a world in which you can put someone in front of a camera and make them a star. They don't have to go through the BBC or ITV anymore. Through YouTube, they can become a star overnight. And that's what happened to Zelensky, because if you see him speak, he's a brilliant speaker. He's basically a motivational speaker. He could convince me my breasts were growing.
Speaker 1No, he couldn't, Tim. You're giving him far too much credit, honestly.
Speaker 2I'm getting older. It happens to us all. So he has ridden that way, but we also live in a period of what Rob Colville calls the Great Acceleration. Everything happens more dramatically and faster, and therefore, there are peaks and troughs in this. People go up very fast, and they go down very, very fast. The question for me is, can you separate Polanski, who does seem to be on that trajectory, from the Green Party? I think you can. Some people I spoke to at the conference said to me, we're not going away because there's a generation of voters who have grown up post-Brexit, post-Corbyn, who do not regard the Labour Party as their natural home. They don't have that sense of a class or ideological affinity for it. They might prefer Burnham to Keir Starmer, but where they really feel at home is in the kind of politics that the Green Party embodies. So just as in Europe. We're continuing to see the fracturing of the established parties. I don't think we should rule the Greens out just yet, and I don't think we should assume that all those votes are going to return to Andy Burnham overnight.
Speaker 1No, no, and I don't think so either. But consider this. The Green Party is now divided. We've had a number of officials having left over the Zionism is racism motion. We've got a row internally and now a potential investigation, right, by the Equality Commission, which is. Extremely serious and could have some very dangerous outcomes for the Greens. You've also got to say to those other Green MPs and those who really do believe in cleaning up the rivers and the seas rather than from the river to the sea, what on earth they're playing at and how on earth this party has lost its central mission, which was last time I checked, to make the world a more environmentally friendly place. What's happened to all that? You know, and I appreciate what you're saying about the kind of Corbynistas. And the hard lefters will always be picking between the Labour Party, the Green Party, some Gaza independent. And I had actually forgotten your party had even existed until you mentioned it just earlier. That's fine. But the Greens were picking up some kind of like middle class support among wavering Lib Dems and wavering Tories. That's not happening anymore. There could be some pickup for maybe the yellows and the blues here, but let's wait and see. But I do think it is. I'm absolutely beholden on other Greens to nip this in the bud now. You know, these so-called progressives, the Adrian Ramseys, the Ellie Chowns of this world, you know, the latter can go in a pine on Newsnight in the face of questioning by Danny Finkelstein, who is Jewish, and sort of say it's all very disappointing and unfortunate. What are you going to do about it?
Speaker 2But I don't think that even if the Green Party gets its house in order, the issue of Israel and Gaza is going to go away. Because. it taps into something that's changed within the country. It's become salient in a way that it wasn't in previous decades. As we're recording, it has been reported that the Reform MP Rob Generick has been reported to the Metropolitan Police and referred to the counter extremism scheme PREVENT over comments in which he described the "Islamification of Britain" as one of the greatest threats to the country's way of life. Now, this has been a conference season. It's a time when race and identity keeps coming up, on the left with the debate around Israel, on the right with the debate around Englishness, and I would argue that this is all a consequence of mass migration. It has forced the British, A, to talk about foreign policy affairs that we've always cared about and have always mattered, but now there is a solid voting bloc that votes on those issues, right? And it's also forced us to debate issues of identity that in the past we either just didn't care about, or we could gloss over because we all had a kind of an understanding of who we were. Well, that's changed as a consequence of mass migration. So although, as we keep saying on this, I agree with you, the next general election is very much going to be about capitalism versus socialism, the role of the state, it's clear that issues of ethnicity and identity are more prominent in a multi-racial society than they were before.
Speaker 1Tim, let's end on a great comment that's been posted on the Telegraph website by Anonymous. "The only Labour victory I will ever celebrate, thank goodness. Polanski had his Corbyn moment, now kick him out of politics." Well, you and I will obviously be following the career of Zach Polanski after this great defeat next week. We've got the weekend tea tomorrow, we've got you having a sort of Sunday showdown with the Shadow Chancellor, Andrew Griffith, over kind of policies that are friendly to the rich, and then I'm going to be back on Monday with Jacob Rees-Mogg, while you take a couple of days off, Tim. Thank goodness for that.
Speaker 2Well, hang on. Although people listening won't be able to see this, I'll just let Bertie say happy weekend to the people viewing.
Speaker 1Bye bye, Bertie.
Speaker 2Bye bye, Tim. Bye bye, everyone. If you want to see this, take a look at the YouTube page.
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