I watched this Channel 4 interview with Zack Polanski and others, when it was put out last night, with real pleasure:
Few politicians have ever talked more sense, more confidently, than Zack did in that interview.
My conclusion is simple: he is spooking the opposition with this obvious competence.
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The buzz is spreading, anecdotally the local green party groups seem more energized than they have been in a long time. If he continues to make waves it will be interesting to see if left leaning groups can hold together when the right turn their big guns on us, which inevitably they will if actual voters start supporting them in meaningful numbers.
I hear that buzz.
The child was lying “the wealthiest in our society are paying more tax now since the 2nd WW in order to fund our NHS”.
a) (sur) tax rates post WW2 for the rich were 52% – 1948. (now? 48%). (and I recall that income taxes were circa 70% in the 1960s).
b) taxes don’t fund spending – why was an economically illiterate person on the prog?
Zac needs to ensure that all Green Party candidates, councillors and spokespeople go through the Murphy school of economics and this broadcast is a good place for them to start. Zac was very polite not speaking over the wee Labour lassie whose economic illiteracy was infuriating. And the trader guy who wants the economy to be in surplus . There was so, so much Zac could have countered.
The Greens have a near vertical uphill journey to make sure the new economic narrative gets traction.
Yes, indeed, at the very end of the program Rupert Harrison urbanely opined that the UK economy needed to be in budget surplus – that is raise more in taxes in the financial year than government expenditure – in order to satisfy the bond markets.
People should remember that this is the same Rupert Harrison who advised Conservative chancellor G Osborne in 2010 to adopt the austerity economics that has done so much damage to the economy and blighted the lives of ordinary people.
That comment was utterly bizarre.
Pleasure to watch Zack’s great performance. The markets want us to be tenants in our own house, as we already are to a large degree. Polanski is throwing a wrench into the established narrative whilst Harrison is busy defending the worldview of big asset managers. Will people hear it and respond to this message? I would hope so as this is the only way to change. Rosie Wrighting could open her mind, question things more, and maybe read a book or two.
Rosie Wrighting had learned the lines
Zack sounded like he owned them
So did Harrison – but that was to his detriment
If he looks like he is gaining traction it is curtains for the SDP and Labour. The champaign socialist/ liberals would be voting Tory if it is really going to hurt them in the pocket. Next election would be a Tory/Reform coalition.
SDP?
Labour is actually the SDP – the Seriously Deficient Party!
Zack Polanski is an interesting an inspiring leader who has energised the Green party (GPEW) and inspired considerable numbers of new members to join the party.
It was helpful for Rupert Harrison to specify that Zack was basically articulating Modern Monetary Theory, because more people might now research exactly what that is. But Harrison was wrong in stating that Japan maintains a trade surplus and is therefore not comparable to the UK which has a chronic trade deficit.
His false statement is revealed by Googling…
Does Japan have a balance of trade surplus?
Rosie Wrighton was clearly out of her depth and her interjection, probably unnoticed, to the effect that nationalisation is too costly, revealed the ignorance that is widespread in Labour’s ranks that nationalisation need entail no upfront cost, the simple basis of which has been demonstrated on this blog several times.
Zack Polanski is not perfect and shares the naivety of others in the Green party on some issues, most obviously on Universal Basic Income.
But the risk for the Green Party, of which I am a member, is that Zack will be seen as a one-man band.
To counter that risk, the party must produce a coherent program that comprises exclusively practical progressive policies and, on the economy specifically, there is work still to to be done to drop the relatively few naïve items that still remain and to adopt more of the policies that would make the Manifesto more convincing as a progressive document. That would include, inter alia, an explicit reference to the principles of Modern Monetary Theory and a convincing package of measures to make banking and finance properly serve the public interest
.
In addition, the Green Party must improve as a campaigning party. Its campaigning is far too parochial and apologetic, based as it is on the document Targeting to Win, which is a hefty tome on how to win council seats and almost certainly eschews any progressive narrative alternative to the neoliberalism espoused by the other mainstream parties.
In my view, the campaigning objective must be to persuade voters in authentic engagement to vote for the Green Party – and if possible join the party and campaign for it. That is quite different from the passive market research approach to canvassing and campaigning that prevails at present.
Much to agree with.
Comes out of the closet: I am a (lifetime) member of the Greens. Tried to engage with them on energy (I know a bit about that) – total waste of time, people protecting their turf, no original thinking, basically amateurs with little professional experience of the energy sector/power sector.
Polanski did well, but the Greens need to be far more than a one man (or woman – as was the case with Caroline Lucas) band.
The national conference (& its agenda) was a joke. Not serious.
Totally agree with you Mike about how the Greens were.
And I like to think there is more hope for them changing than any other party.
My sister-in-law stood as a candidate in elections for a new Town Council (caused by the nonsense with Mayors). She was totally new to politics and I was very impressed by the level of training and support she was given. That made me think that there has been some preparation for the membership influx and the 2029 election.
They have a long way to go – but they can possibly do it….
Zack Polanski gave Rosie Wrighting a proper shellacking but it is not hard when Labour MP’s are 28 year old former fashion buyers who keep saying “i want the wealthy to contribute more” yet has nothing of value to contribute….
I’m listening to the video at present.
Of course there are details that make shout “rubbish” – but my observation so far is,
Zack Polanski is very effectively moving the Overton Window away from neoliberal orthodoxy towards Keynes and also miraculously towards MMT – which got a considerable airing.
Okay – it wasn’t pure MMT – okay, there were lots of lies told – but there was stuff said there, including the admission of the existence of MMT, a challenge to the household analogy, a challenge to austerity, a discussion of inequality, some punchy facts about property wealth – and when was the last time you heard that sort of content on mass media?
The “economist” felt the need to defend aspects of Japan’s economy. That’s worth noting – he sees the danger of someone like Zack busting some myths by referring to Japan.
The young Labour MP was absolutely incapable of taking part in the argument – all she could do was pretend a personal concern about poverty but tell lies (or be ignorant) about what to do about it (like denying Reeves was committed to austerity). She could argue about the need for increased spending on certain things, but she was utterly unable to even begin discussing how that could be achieved in terms of macro-economics. She couldn’t bring herself to identify with spending cuts, austerity, demonising the poor – but she didn’t challenge the reality of a Reeves government making all these things happen.
Zack wiped the floor with her but did that with positive policy arguments.
Before the broadcast, would any of us have made a list of the topics that got dealt with at length on the broadcast, actually believing that there would be an hour long MSM broadcast discussing these things?
They are onto austerity right now – interesting that no one is prepared to defend austerity, even on the right (although they will pursue it nevertheless).
I’ll leave it there. My main point – Zack has just demonstrated that the Overton Window is coming loose, and is being creakingly, slowly, painfully, shifted left again. That is a massive achievement.
I would recommend commentators to listen to it, and measure it on that criteria – the Overton window.
YES!
A superb media appearance by Polanski. It’s clearly showing that he’s not only talking to a range of people expert in their field, but that he’s absorbing that information and building a solid understanding that underpins a powerful counter narrative to the tired old neolib BS that’s been peddled for the past several decades.
My only concern is how he and the Greens will weather the inevitable monstering he will get in the press as the threat to the status quo starts to be taken seriously.
It’s just so hard to push back against the “but Liz Truss” argument. Whilst Zack was great, I can’t help but feel those not aware of the economic ideas he was talking about will just accept the doomsday warnings of the guys in suits who speak with a posh accent about how we need to be fiscally responsible.
See https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/11/25/why-is-so-much-of-the-left-economically-incompetent/#comment-1055170
for a similar sentiment from me.
This Rosie person……..talking about Polanski creating ‘false hope’.
Well, what is ‘real’ hope then?
Does the Rosie person mean that hope as a concept is false?
I mean WTF?
So, what the Rosie person is actually saying is that you have to take the world as you find it.
‘Taking the world as you find it.’
Now, my fellow readers, is that what politics is really all about? If it was, then I have totally misunderstood.
At the moment, this non-voter is on a trajectory towards Mr Polanski.
🙂
I found her “you’ve never had it so good” lines to be utterly hopeless when we know that is not true.
Polanski is terrifying. His main thesis only works if there is a conspiracy by economists and politicians to keep these workable ideas from being known. After all, every politician would love to go their grave surrounded by their grandchildren by the fireplace having been able to claim they had made climate change a manageable problem. In the case of Theresa May she said, “make it so”, gave massive powers to DESNZ, and lots of people hate her legacy, but it’s not in doubt that she wanted to make it work and go down with that as her legacy.
Seems to me that what the Greens need most now is a “Shadow Chancellor” to build up their financial policy and start to sell it.
Anyone any suggestions for who that could be? I do not see that they need to be an MP…….yet…..
Shelagh Jones, be careful what you wish for.
That’s the job James Meadway is (probably) angling for.
The last quote from him that I read? “The idea of a MMT economy is to be avoided at all costs.”
That was on Twitter last night, I think.
I’m surprised that the media attacks haven’t been more sustained yet. Reform made a not so subtle racist dog whistle attack against Polanski, but the wider media haven’t got going yet. I suspect it will be the “Trans issue”, the made up wedge issue that the Right love to role out, as they can also pretend to care about women, not just hate people who aren’t like them.
The Green Party is just another neoliberal party, now seeing an opportunity to gather votes from the left. Their councils don’t display any socialist ideas and their MP’s recently voted against a Labour motion in the Commons to protect USDAW workers.
Tell me which party you support and why, and what its prospects for power are?
It would be interesting to present Rosie and her ilk with a simple challenge. If you were very wealthy and someone like Zack implemented a wealth tax, would you decamp and refuse to allow your enormous wealth to be taxed? If they said yes then their moral vacuity would be laid bare. If they said no then they would contradict their own line that wealth is untaxable .