Zack Polanski has a credible chance of leading – or playing a leading role in – the next government. His Green Party is, according to two polls, ahead of Labour. The party’s surge is real: ongoing, sustained and with little sign of stopping yet. They are polling three times the vote share they achieved at the 2024 general election.
The transition from fringe party has been astronomical – driven by the charismatic and articulate leadership of Polanski and the implosion of Starmer’s Labour Party.
But there is a big problem.
It starts with the recently unearthed Green policy for dog licensing. As Labour found with its plan to cut the benefits of 10 million pensioners you don’t want to upset large swathes of the electorate. Dog licensing could end up taxing Britain’s 13 million dog owners. If it did that, it would land the Greens in similar territory. For Labour that was a world of hurt. It also speaks to a lack of seriousness and prioritisation.
People are struggling to make ends meet, public services are in disarray… and what is the Greens’ apparent priority? To establish a huge bureaucracy to administer and enforce dog licensing and tax millions of people.
The Conservative election strategist Lynton Crosby once advised David Cameron to “scrape the barnacles off the boat”, i.e. to dump unpopular policies. Boris Johnson heeded this advice to great effect in 2019 too.
It’s a vulnerability which other political parties have noticed. Recently, Labour tried to highlight the big bad Green policy threat in the Gorton and Denton by-election. Starmer’s panicked response afterwards contained more of the same warning. Both of the issues targeted by Labour – drug legalisation and Nato – were well-handled by Polanski in response.
On drugs, the teetotaller Polanski rightly points out that drug deaths are rising (they have trebled in the last 30 years) and our current approach is not working. On Nato he has moderated his language to talk more about greater European co-ordination (as Starmer has too). Plus Polanski can also play the ace up his sleeve: Donald Trump – who wants to be aligned with that lunatic?
Still, by the time of the next general election there is very likely to be a new US president. So some revision of the Green view on Nato may be wise – especially if the Democrats regain control of the White House.
What should be keeping Polanski up at night is his party’s economic plans. The last Green Party manifesto was just not credible. It advocated a whopping £172bn of annual tax rises. It looked like a smorgasbord of options (some better thought-through than others) that nobody bothered to whittle down – and so everything went in.
This is not to say that many of their proposals were not individually credible, but several overlapped and taken together would likely have led to large behavioural changes that would not have raised the revenue promised.
The Greens proposed borrowing plans – both for day-to-day spending and investment – which were scarcely credible at a time when borrowing costs were still high.
With global economic uncertainty likely here to stay, left parties need new thinking for how to govern in an era of perma-crisis and instability – without capitulating to neoliberal orthodoxy.
That may mean looking at things like rent controls (as the Greens already have), and wider price controls to cap profiteering on essential goods like energy, water, food and transport.
The Greens did have some interesting ideas in their manifesto, like removing VAT from the hard-pressed hospitality sector. But this is their problem in a nutshell: it got little to no coverage as it was a footnote buried beneath the £170bn mountain of occasionally regressive or dubious tax proposals.
Polanski needs to sharpen his radical message. Otherwise, rather than talking on his party’s own terms, he will spend his life firefighting attacks over peripheral issues.
In 2017, I was in charge of the Labour manifesto. It cut through precisely because it focused on three core issues: ending austerity, redistributive taxation, and public ownership – which all spoke to the overall theme: “for the many, not the few”. The whole thing was tested in detailed polling to ensure the messages got through.
In the Gorton and Denton by-election, Polanski and the party’s successful candidate, Hannah Spencer, were similarly disciplined in their messaging: “Lower bills. Protect the NHS. Rebuild public services”. For that message to land in an election, the Greens need to shed policies that don’t fit the narrative.
With the Greens flying in the polls and Polanski in the ascendant, he has an opportunity to clear those barnacles off the boat – and also capitalise on the goodwill of hundreds of thousands of new members who have joined under his leadership.
If the Greens can hone their offer into one focused on the priorities of people, not just activists – and leaves dog owners untaxed – they have a realistic chance of achieving what they could never have hoped for just a few short years ago.
Hence then, the article about starmer can t stop polanski but britain s dog owners might was published today ( ) and is available on inews ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Starmer can’t stop Polanski, but Britain’s dog owners might )
Also on site :
- Cozy Tuesday, tracking a dangerous heatwave this week
- Blackpink’s Jisoo to Receive Madame Figaro Rising Star Award at Canneseries
- Disgusting! Mamdani Hosts Columbia Hamas Superfan Mahmoud Khalil for Ramadan Meal at Gracie Mansion