Eliot Wilson has a grimly entertaining City AM piece on Zack Polanski and his imbecile Green Party. Entertaining because Polanski and his Greens are so silly. Grim because he constantly reminds us that a significant number of voters are deceived by abjectly silly rhetoric.
Green activists want to take Polanski down a dark road
The Greens’ absolutism is bad for politics, and Polanski too. Those who police dogma see heretics everywhere, even at the top, writes Eliot Wilson
Zack Polanski, leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, is easy to dislike. There is something preposterous and confected about him, and it is no surprise that he has a background in acting.
He is suffocatingly earnest and demonstrates armour-plated self-belief even when pronouncing the most implausible silliness. He once explained that, as Prime Minister, he would “keep pushing for negotiation” with President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine; last November he told Sky News’s Trevor Philllips that “we should never leave the negotiating table” and that he would persuade Putin to give up Russia’s nuclear weapons.
It is not easy to imagine the former KGB colonel who has ruled Russia since the last millennium being outfoxed by a man who once taught at the National Centre for Circus Arts, but Polanski continued crossly that “you could have laughed at the point of Nelson Mandela negotiating with the ANC”.
The whole piece is well worth reading. Depressing but well worth reading - this is the world in which we are doomed to live.
Zack Polanski, leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, is easy to dislike. There is something preposterous and confected about him, and it is no surprise that he has a background in acting.
He is suffocatingly earnest and demonstrates armour-plated self-belief even when pronouncing the most implausible silliness. He once explained that, as Prime Minister, he would “keep pushing for negotiation” with President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine; last November he told Sky News’s Trevor Philllips that “we should never leave the negotiating table” and that he would persuade Putin to give up Russia’s nuclear weapons.
It is not easy to imagine the former KGB colonel who has ruled Russia since the last millennium being outfoxed by a man who once taught at the National Centre for Circus Arts, but Polanski continued crossly that “you could have laughed at the point of Nelson Mandela negotiating with the ANC”.
The whole piece is well worth reading. Depressing but well worth reading - this is the world in which we are doomed to live.
Rory Sutherland, vice-chairman of Ogilvy UK, talks about “album politics”. “A kind of artificial worldview where you have to buy the entire album, as it were… in other words, it’s not just that you have left-wing opinions, you have to buy into every single opinion”.
It is not politics so much as theology, and soi-disant “progressives” are as certain as any mediaeval cleric of St Cyprian’s mantra, extra ecclesiastical nulla salus. If a political party concentrates on these deeply emotive issues on which they see voters as saved or damned, friends or enemies, wanting to force repentance rather than descending to the dust in the arena of persuasion, we should expect a bitter, moralising general election campaign. It is bad news for public discourse, bad news for any engagement or generosity of spirit.
It is not politics so much as theology, and soi-disant “progressives” are as certain as any mediaeval cleric of St Cyprian’s mantra, extra ecclesiastical nulla salus. If a political party concentrates on these deeply emotive issues on which they see voters as saved or damned, friends or enemies, wanting to force repentance rather than descending to the dust in the arena of persuasion, we should expect a bitter, moralising general election campaign. It is bad news for public discourse, bad news for any engagement or generosity of spirit.
