Five years ago, Zack Polanski was a hypnotherapist, best known for claiming he could enlarge women’s breasts with the power of his brilliant mind.
Today, he’s effectively running our country.
That dramatic transformation tells you everything you need to know about what’s wrong with the Prime Minister, the Labour Party, and, sadly, Britain as a whole right now.
Gorton and Denton was Labour’s 38th safest constituency. Not anymore.
Last month, the Green Party won the seat, topping Labour’s measly third-place result by 5,000 votes, with Reform running them hard in second.
And the tremors of that event haven’t stopped in Manchester.
The Green Party’s victory is already terrifying Labour MPs, and predictably driving Sir Keir Starmer even further away from the sane majority in this country.
For, despite his bumper ranks of MPs, many of whom owe their parliamentary careers to the Prime Minister, he remains in hock to his restive and Left-leaning backbenchers.
The Green Party, which is led by Zack Polanski, last month won the seat at Gorton and Denton, topping Labour’s third-place result by 5,000 votes
Most now prize their own survival above loyalty to the leader, and if that means tacking to the Greens then so be it.
Because the Gorton and Denton result was not just a one-off.
It represents a national collapse of Labour’s voter coalition.
In years past, the party used to rely on inner city support but it has long abandoned any pretence that it is the tribune of the working class.
Today, just 15 per cent of working-class voters want a Labour government.
Alarm clock Britain – that silent majority of people who work for their money and love this country – is flocking to Reform.
The hard-working, decent, patriotic people I know in Nottinghamshire, many of whose forebears voted Labour for generations, have had it with them.
To plug the gaping hole in their traditional support, the party courts two cohorts of voters: Muslims and those reliant on the public sector.
And it is these two groups that Polanski threatens to steal from Labour.
During the by-election campaign, the Greens’ messaging wasn’t especially green.
Environmental issues took a back seat while the party criticised Labour for being insufficiently loyal to the Palestinian cause, published social media content in Urdu and even baited the electorate, many of whom hail from Pakistan, with a video of Starmer shaking hands with India’s Hindu nationalist prime minister Narendra Modi.
It worked.
And with dozens of constituencies sharing similar demographics, the Labour Party is trying its damnedest to address this vulnerability.
Take the Government’s new definition of ‘Anti-Muslim hostility’, which seeks to provide Muslims with special, unique protection against ‘negative stereotyping’.
This, despite the fact that all faith groups are already guarded from prejudice in the Equality Act.
The Green Party’s victory last month is already terrifying Labour MPs, and predictably driving Sir Keir Starmer even further away from the sane majority in this country
Amid opposition that such a broad definition reserved only for one group would stifle free speech, Starmer made it happen regardless.
Carla Denyer, a Green Party MP, welcomed the call but demanded ‘the conversation… move towards action’ to ensure ‘accountability’ for those criticising Islam.
Steve Reed, the Labour Communities Secretary, agreed and said he was appointing an ‘anti-Muslim hostility tsar’ to focus solely on protecting Muslim communities.
It’s the same with the response to the Iran War.
Starmer keeps repeating the line that he did not allow the US to use our joint bases from the start.
Where has that got us? Precisely nowhere.
He hopes to curry favour with Green-adjacent voters who might view him as an anti-war hero.
Yet now he belatedly permits our American allies to use the bases to secure the Strait of Hormuz.
Even on issues where more intelligent voices in Labour recognise that reform is needed, their decisions are driven by a fear of the Green insurgency.
Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, proposed tepid but sensible changes to the process by which migrants earn the right to stay in the UK indefinitely.
Last week, it was reported that the Government would U-turn on even those modest changes after Angela Rayner described them as ‘un-British’.
This has the whiff of the welfare reforms that never were, when even a small cut to our cripplingly generous benefits system was shelved last summer after a backbench rebellion.
On the economy, this craven submission to the Greens is painfully apparent also. Look at the cost of heating.
Anyone with an atlas could tell you that the way to cut bills would be to drill in the North Sea, growing our domestic source of British gas.
Even the trade unions acknowledge we should do it, but Starmer refuses to grant new licences.
So we’re forced to buy the same North Sea gas but drilled by the Norwegians.
Who knows, perhaps he will take another leaf out of Polanski’s book and just hypnotise people into feeling warmer.
The truth is, Starmer – insofar as he believes in anything – recognises that each of these areas requires change.
Yet each time he has attempted to act, his MPs have forced him to U-turn.
And expect more swivels on a sixpence as May’s local elections approach.
Labour is expected to take a pasting, as supporters from its far-Left flank find in Zack Polanski the Jeremy Corbyn they really hold in their hearts.
Personality is also an issue – as compared to Starmer, Zack is the more charismatic campaigner, though that isn’t hard, of course.
After the rout, Labour MPs will be desperate to appease Green voters and may conclude that the only way to do that is to snatch the keys to Number 10 from Starmer and give them to Rayner.
They’d better be careful what they wish for, because any lurch to the far-Left will be even more disastrous for our economy than anything Chancellor Rachel Reeves has inflicted.
It will certainly mean more waste, borrowing and higher taxes.
Influential Labour figures such as Lisa Nandy and Andy Burnham, who are itching to oust Starmer, agree with Zack Polanski that we can borrow whatever we like without consequences.
Why not? It’s not their money, it’s just zeroes on a spreadsheet.
Why should they care that it’s taxpayers who will be paying the sky-high interest that the ever-growing debt accrues.
It will be proto-communism, with Chairman Polanski pulling the strings off-stage.
But as Labour chases far-Left voters ever further down the rabbit hole, taxes will rise, living standards will fall, the boats of illegal migrants will keep coming – and Britain will slip even further behind as a First World nation.
At the local elections, we will have a chance to send this Government a message – that millions of people don’t want to see our great country broken on the wheel of Left-wing lunacy.
They want Britain to be fixed. Sending this message will force Labour to rethink their policy of chasing extremists, and act as the first step to removing the party from power.
