{"id":7073325,"date":"2026-10-02T20:26:22","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T20:26:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7073325"},"modified":"2026-10-02T20:26:22","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T20:26:22","slug":"at-brighton-polanski-raised-his-arms-in-triumph-it-felt-more-like-a-wave-goodbye-john-crace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7073325","title":{"rendered":"At Brighton, Polanski raised his arms in triumph. It felt more like a wave goodbye | John Crace"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

T<\/span>he Chronicle of a Death Foretold. It must be weird to realise that you have in effect made yourself obsolete inside a year. Worse, that you have actively accelerated your demise. Even AI doesn\u2019t work at that speed. But that\u2019s precisely what it looks as if Zack Polanski<\/a> has done. Maybe he should just look on the bright side. He\u2019s managed eight Liz Trusses. Not to be sneezed at.<\/p>\n

Polanski is partly a victim of his own success. A cautionary tale of being careful what you wish for. Like Nigel Farage, the leader of the Green party was one of Keir Starmer\u2019s fiercest critics. Andy Burnham and Wes Streeting excepted. Keir wasn\u2019t radical enough. Did not care enough about Gaza. Was too dull. And under Zack\u2019s leadership, voters swarmed from Labour to the Greens. The party climbed to a record high of 18% in the polls and won the Gorton and Denton byelection<\/a> against the staggeringly dim Matt Goodwin.<\/p>\n

But then Keir was airbrushed out of history and Labour chose a prime minister that a lot of people in the country actually liked. Someone who could communicate. Even if they weren\u2019t in love with Andy, voters were willing to give him a chance. Ever since, the Greens have tanked. Now they are down to 11%. Zack\u2019s net approval rating\u2019s almost as bad as Nige\u2019s. Not content with this, Zack has almost certainly fatally holed his credibility by standing in the Holborn and St Pancras byelection, which he is very likely to lose. Shares in brand Polanski have never been lower.<\/p>\n

The Green party conference in Brighton could not have come at a worse time. Zack didn\u2019t want it to go ahead<\/a> because he wanted to concentrate on his byelection campaign. Senior members of the leadership were briefing that the whole conference was pointless.<\/p>\n

But the conference did go ahead, and on Friday lunchtime it began with the local MP, Si\u00e2n Berry, and Gorton and Denton MP, Hannah Spencer, doing their best impressions of a Duracell bunny. High energy, hyperactive enthusiasm. Like Blue Peter presenters on amphetamines. Everything was great. Never better. \u201cCome on, everybody,\u201d said Si\u00e2n. \u201cWe think the best of everyone.\u201d We\u2019ll reserve judgment on that till Sunday when some of the more toxic issues are aired. Hannah was also rushing on her run. \u201cWe have forced the government to change course,\u201d she said. Mmm. And that\u2019s sort of the problem.<\/p>\n

Si\u00e2n and Hannah were just the warm-up acts for the main event. And with the arrival of Polanski to give his leader\u2019s speech, almost all the excitement was sucked out of the room. The packed hall became like a dead zone. The slogan on the back of the stage said \u201creal hope\u201d but all you could feel was desperation. The sense that the Greens had had a fleeting moment in the sun and the long nights were drawing in.<\/p>\n

It is customary for a leader\u2019s speech to be punctuated with standing ovations. That\u2019s the whole point of them. Even if the leader is talking pure bollocks. Zack got two. One for saying Palestine and the other for \u201cgreen revolution\u201d. In Brighton, everyone gets a standing ovation for saying Palestine and green revolution. It\u2019s written in the city\u2019s DNA.<\/p>\n

Zack looked down from the start. Normally he\u2019s an animated speaker, but today he just looked defeated. As if he was trying and failing to will himself to care. It was just too big an ask. And maybe you couldn\u2019t blame him. His team had chosen this day to brief the media that if they could persuade 30% of Labour voters in Holborn and St Pancras to vote for Zack, he would lose by only four points. That\u2019s a bit like walking into A&E and being told by the doctors they can give you a heart and lung transplant but you are going to die regardless.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat a year,\u201d he began. Indeed. Though maybe he didn\u2019t need to spell it out so clearly. From fringe party to something more mainstream and back again. All over in a heartbeat. Zack couldn\u2019t disguise the look of regret in his eyes. From time to time his head bobbed up and down, as if trying to get his brain to agree with him, but his body language spoke of an inner despair. Rather than the leader of a national political party, he came across as a rather shouty undergraduate student. Long on agitprop and soundbites. Short on genuine argument.<\/p>\n

Sure, there were nods to taxing the rich more, imposing rent controls, Free Palestine and environmentalism. But these were just words to try to please the crowds. There was no sense of how much this would cost, how it would be done or where the money would come from. \u201cI say to government, \u2018Slogans aren\u2019t enough\u2019,\u201d he said without a hint of self-awareness. You could only put it down as a man who knows his political career could be as good as over by this time next week.<\/p>\n

There was something rather sad about it all. The Greens had wanted so much more than this. They had believed they had elected a man of substance \u2013 someone less polite and deferential than previous leaders such as Caroline Lucas and Carla Denyer \u2013 who would go toe to toe with the other mainstream parties. But he had turned out to be a chimera. Just another hollow man. Long on slogans, short on ideas. A leader who had briefly burned brightly but had fizzled out. A victim of his own success. A one-year wonder destined to become a man of absence. Losing the byelection would only hasten the end.<\/p>\n

Most leader\u2019s speeches last about an hour. Zack was done and dusted in just over half that. Even then, it felt far too fluffy, far too long. Come the end, Hannah and Sian came on stage to raise his arms aloft in triumph. It felt more like a long wave goodbye.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Chronicle of a Death Foretold. It must be weird to realise that you have in effect made yourself obsolete inside a year. Worse, that you have actively accelerated your demise. Even AI doesn\u2019t work at that speed. But that\u2019s precisely what it looks as if Zack Polanski has done. Maybe he should just look […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7073326,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101793,182,12501,143568],"tags":[9622,37439,234083,6127,4631,3201,143572,18525,22272,2466],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-7073325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-green-party","category-politics","category-uk-news","category-zack-polanski","tag-arms","tag-brighton","tag-crace","tag-felt","tag-goodbye","tag-john","tag-polanski","tag-raised","tag-triumph","tag-wave"],"yoast_head":"\nAt Brighton, Polanski raised his arms in triumph. 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