YouSaid · the spoken record

Zack Polanski

lines on the record: 83
first: 2025-12-01
most recent: 2025-12-01
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“No, absolutely not. I think this is a man who ran on the coattails of Jeremy Corbyn and then ditched every pledge he could. He's a man he's kept the two child benefit cap, the disability cuts. He might not have kept the two-child benefit cap by the time we're talking, hopefully. And also the genocide in Gaza. I think he's so deeply untrustworthy and so deeply lost for trust of the British public. I think it would be incoherent to win seats challenging him and then go, and now I'm going to work with him. A future Labour leader, though, is not off the table because I would be foolish because I don't know who that future Labour leader is.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And say, well, give us proportional representation, and then people can have a vote that actually matters. That would be better for democracy. By answering your question within the framework we're in, I don't think it's a legitimate argument because Nigel Farage has shot through the polls with the politics of hate and despair. The Green Party is shooting through the polls right now with a politics of hope, with community and tangible policies to make a difference to people's lives. What is Labour Party's offer? What is the point of Keir Starmer at this point? It just seems to be to occupy number 10 as a holding ground for Nigel Farage. We don't need to wait till the next general election to have this debate. Let's have this debate with the country right now. And I'm pretty sure the country will go. I'd rather be with the party that actually want to change people's lives, the Green Party, rather than be with the party that just wants to entertain Nigel Farage and be a version that's just sad about it, but doing the tough choices. Why are they always tough choices for working class communities for disabled people when they're going to be tough choices for multimillionaires and billionaires? It's time to tax for rich.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the prefix I give to this is let's have a PR system. If Kirstan was truly worried about this and if he's going to keep saying, vote for Labor, you'll get Nigel Farage, we should turn to him more.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Silicon, I'm a very smiley politician. I have lots of joy in life, and I'm really, really enjoying the work I do. I think it's also important to point out the severity of this moment for so many people, for working class communities, for minority communities, for trans communities, for the disabled community. Labor are handling this country on a plate to Nigel Farage. They are offering no alternative. And in fact, when Farage says, jump, they're saying how high. And not only is this morally repugnant, particularly with their views towards the small boats at the moment and people seeking asylum, it's also politically incomprehensible. If people wanted low fat reform, they vote for Nigel Farage. He's literally there, that's full-fat reform, sorry. Keir Starmer is offering low-fat reform. He's offering no real alternative. And so I don't think the question to me is, are the Green Party going to split a vote or are we going to get in the way of Kir Starmer? I think we're really getting to the point where you could say to the Labour Party and Kirstama, why are you getting in the way of the Green Party's hopeful alternative?”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, it would be tempting. Obviously, things are more complicated in that seat for lots of various reasons. But yeah, it's definitely not off the table.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So this weekend, I'm going to something called Path to Parliament, which is where we have hundreds of people who are going to be the new generation of green MPs. And we've reached out to communities. And I'm really excited that some of the future MPs might not even be members yet because they're people when I'm going to do outreach that were selecting and then they become MPs because they got excited by the Green Party. So I'm not in any major hurry to do it because actually the message I want to send right now is the Green Party are growing and we want more people in. I don't want us necessarily to select from just for people we've got as brilliant as some of those people are, I want us to keep growing as a mass movement.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Place to start. It is interesting to note, though, that Ellie Chowns and Adrian Ramsey and two of our rural seats, they came forth from fifth place to come first place. In fact, Ellie Chowns had the biggest swing in the country. You took Ellie Chowns' swing in North Herefordshire and put it on any seat in England and Wales, there's no seat the Green Party can't win. So what that tells me is if you have the right narrative, the right candidate, because she's an excellent MP, and the right resourcing. And resourcing is a real, real issue here.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I would have had an answer for you a week ago. And more interestingly, I don't know what my answer is now, so we'll explore that. I would have said between 30 to 40 MPs, and that was pretty ambitious to go from 4 MPs to 40 MPs. The rate that the Green Party is shooting up in the polls, the rate of membership, the by-elections, we won last night with, I think, a 19% swing up where Labour went down 19%, somewhere we're like, Walthamstow, Stella Crease's seat. Greens went up, I think, 18%. She went down 18%. There's very clear correlations here. I definitely want to run for a seat in London. And that's just because there's a coherency about the fact that I'm a London assembly member under proportional representation. So any Londoner, I'm already their elected representative. So I'm going to tell the truth. I'm obviously looking at numbers and going, I want to make sure that it's a seat that feels right in terms of the story that I'm telling, but also there's 39 seats across England and Wales where Greens came second place. So those of you obviously.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, because there's an ideal and pragmatic solution, which is to recognize that the fossil fuel subsidies were given to those same organizations could be used and Carla Daniev, a Green MP for Bristol Central, has a bill about this coming to talk about legislation, to use that money to invest in training and the new jobs in green investment, renewables, solar and wind. So I don't think there's anything ideal or pragmatic. In fact, the opposite of telling people everything's going to be okay. And we saw this with the mines just pretending things are going to be fine and then shutting them down. I think we've got to be honest with people that we need the new jobs of the future. But you can't just announce them. You've got to work with the trade unions, the workers and say, look, this is a situation on the table. Be honest with people. Treat them like adults. And say with this money, we want to co-design with you how we can train you, how we can make sure that you're in a job that feels purposeful and make sure that people have lives where they feel they're embedded in communities rather than having to work for petro countries or”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Airport expansion, you can't say that there's a climate crisis at the same time they're expanding aviation. By the time this podcast comes out, we'll have a decision on Rosebank. In fact, I can say this so you can have it in the bank. If they have refused, I'll explain Rosebank in a second. If they have refused to expand Rosebank or open it up, I will give total credit to the government. That's the right decision. The Rosebank oil field will have the cumulative emissions of 28 of the poorest income countries altogether. They will say it is about jobs, but for the last 10 years, jobs have overhalved in North Sea oil and gas. The jobs just aren't there. And actually, we have taken most of the assets too. There isn't that much oil left. So all we're doing is...”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Know pragmatically if we don't tackle the climate crisis, we're all gone. So it's not good enough to get a gold star or do just enough. You've got to do what's necessary as a start, and I'd like us to be genuine global leaders.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's got a podcast now, Zach. I could give you the number right now about how much it's going to cost, and that would change in a month or two. My point is when I go on Sunday about this budget, I need to know the numbers because I'm going on a conversation on Sunday.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, two things. So we're not in a general election, so I don't have a cost in manifesto in front of me, which I think you both agree is a perfectly reasonable assumption. Second, though, what I can tell you is that investing in it is bringing money back. So it almost doesn't matter how much it costs. It's for fundamental that you incentivize the goods, you disincentivize the bads. And that's for principle, whereas at the moment we have it the other way around. I went to Sheffield the other day. I got a train. It cost me nearly £200. If I'd flown, I obviously wasn't going to fly. But if I'd flown, it probably would have been much less. That's not natural order. That's because we are subsidizing kerosene, the jet fuel, more than we subsidize train travel. Now, could you grill me on what those exact numbers are? No, you can't. I'm going on Laura Koonsberg on Sunday for the budget. By then, I will have done the budget work and I'll be able to give you numbers, but I'm not come on the podcast.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And how much is it going to cost is a fine question. But the next question is, how much does it cost if we don't do it and actually investing in it is creating money, is creating the economy?”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I've got one word for you Investment. Let's talk about the cost of inaction. This is particularly prevalent in the climate crisis. People will say it's very, very expensive to spend on the climate crisis when getting to the arguments we've had. It's a lot more expensive not to spend on the climate crisis. We've had reports after reports about the cost of inaction in terms of floods and wildfires. And the beauty here is investing in the climate crisis. If we insulate every single home in Britain that needs it, that would reduce people's bills, vital in the cost of living crisis, would reduce emissions, vital in the climate crisis, and crucially it could create hundreds of thousands of jobs that could be in the public sector, in trade unions where people are being paid properly, treated with dignity and care. And the reason why I'm giving that example is you could say, what's that going to do to debt? What's that going to do to the deficit? All legitimate questions is it goes to...”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Two responses We can always discover more, accept that challenge, I'm always happy to talk to people in a London assembly member for the last five years. We have investigations pretty much every week where people come in, people you would describe as mainstream economists, and I listen to them. And then I challenge them. And then when I'm having those private conversations with them or even in public, I can hear they don't quite understand the paradigm shift I'm talking about because they've not discovered yet. So that's not me saying I hold the ultimate truth or you hold the ultimate truth. I think there's absolutely truth and we can always discover more about economics. What I am saying to you though, Rory, is the frame that I think you have is the frame that we've seen for decades of neoliberalism or even capitalism. Whatever word you put on it, it is so fundamentally broken and destroyed and is getting worse and it's time for us all to have a discovery a lot more quickly.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Once you've established the principle that there's deep inequality, that a lot of this is because multimillionaires and billionaires are holding wealth, then what you do about it is an open question. But let's establish a principle first.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, this underlines some of our conversation too. We're not in government right now. When you're in government, you have an entire civil service to go, here are our principles, here's how we get to the exact questions that Alistair's fairly asking me about what does the legislation look like and how do you make this happen? I think the point to do right now is to get the principles. Can I highlight something that I think is interesting? So I did a debate the other night with BBC. I came off stage and a woman came over to me. And it says story I'm hearing lots. It was lovely. She said my four kids are so happy with what you're saying. You're giving them hope again. They're feeling really excited. And I said to her, that's your kids. What about you? And she was like, I think you're brilliant. I think you speak with compassion and values. But I'm not convinced yet that what you say is doable. And what I need to see is the practical shift of how to make those things happen. And it's a criticism or a challenge. I totally accept that absolutely needs to happen. People need to be able to ask questions and there's more and more detail about what happens. But that happens once you've established the principles. And I feel like this is what Gary was saying to you too.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think the academic consensus is among economists who aren't working for the government. I think they're all looking at government decisions.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Brilliant people. So, Grace Blakeley, Richard Murphy, who's been doing a lot of work on this, Gary Stevenson, who I know you've had on recently, James Medway or James Meadway, lots of different economists, though. A lot of the time.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, it's definitely, I mean, it's not harder than I think. I know it's hard. I know none of this is easy, but I didn't get into politics to do the easy things. What I would flip the question around, because sometimes people have the tone of voice that sounds like, oh, you know, this is ludicrous and so radical. What's radical is what we've got right now, which has trickled down economics, which has been proven to fail. I don't disagree on that. And over again. And so we need a different system. I'm not an economist. I'm not going to pretend to be an economist. What I am, though, is someone who listens to brilliant economists and a whole range of economists and listens to ideas from around the world. And what I know is that our system is broken.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“From A to B. Well, and so now we're really going to the root of the question. I think it comes to all of what Rory was just saying because I think we're operating in different paradigms. I don't think the market should be dictating democratic decisions. I think the people we elect and governmentally republic.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But why I'm getting straight back at you is we don't need to spend that money. So that money has been created as an idea. We're spending that money straight back to ourselves.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So actually, of all people, Richard Tice has been saying the same thing. During COVID, we gave loans to the Bank of England.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Intervention here where we actually care for people, we have compassion towards people, and government take responsibility for the lives of people. And by the way, that's brilliant for economy every time that it's been done. It's great. And the last thing I'd say, because it's your question really about printing money, is we're really talking about debt-to-GDP ratio there. Japan has a 270% debt-to-GDP ratio. They have significantly better living standards than we do. These are all awful measures. GDP, even the guy who designed the idea of GDP, says this is a terrible way to measure the health from the economy.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, you talk about printing more, but actually, what we're saying there is investing more. So creating the money that we're going to get back is a false economy to underinvest in our national health service because what we do is we get a sick population, which is exactly what we've had. We saw this during COVID and not today you've been discussing the COVID inquiry. We didn't put the measures in place. We didn't invest. And our economy has badly been hit as a result. Ultimately, investing is bringing that money back into the economy. And the reason why this can sound controversial is because we have had politicians for decades now that have had a big systemic change of moving public money to private wealth. To come back to your question, Rory, to fund corporations and ultimately to say to their lucrative contracts and people they know, we saw this with the PPE scandal, but it's not just PPE, it's happening every day. It's happening with the hotels, with migrants, where money is being put into private companies rather than saying, what is the role of the state? We saw this with the Atley government. We saw this with this mass investment to actually go, let's have the state.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For sure, and then you Well, what I'm saying now doesn't require a whole lot of legislation and can get to legislation. But first thing we need to do is abolish these nonsense fiscal rules. The only fiscal rule we should have is the rate of inflation should be watched as much as you have physical resources in your space.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that myth is so broken. I had a debate earlier this week with Jeremy Hunt. And I was just really aware of like we're just operating in a completely different paradigm frame. So the question. Hold on.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, we have a sovereign currency in this country, so we can still work with Europe and we should rejoin the customs union immediately. It's absolutely outrageous that we're not, but we would still be in charge of our own finances. And so it's about investing in our communities. And it really is as simple as that. And that hasn't been done for a long time because of this metaphor that we have a budget deficit. But actually, when we're talking about a deficit, what we're really saying that is a deficit to the Bank of England is money in our public services. And actually, if we have a surplus, that's a deficit to our public services. And this can sound truly radical to someone if they've always kind of just heard the one idea of how our economy works. But actually, this came from Thatcher. It came from neoliberalism. And then the BBC, maybe a few years ago, started to challenge it. They started to say, let's have a conversation about deficits and debts and what they truly mean. And they were doing some pretty good work. And then they went very quiet. And then now they are absolutely reinforcing that old myth.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think that's where you need to look at measures as well. This is all holistic. But the point of the principle is that if you're someone who is cleaning a building, you could be paying more tax than the person who owns that building, which comes to the next measure as well, which links to the last question you just asked me. National insurance on investment income. Because actually, again, a landlord who has paid off their mortgage can be paying less in tax than the renter who is renting off them. All of those things don't have to be that way. They're a result of political choices. Now, to come to your question more widely, I think, though, when you start to recognize, again, that a national economy is not like a household budget. You start to get to conversations about spending multipliers. Now, all of this means is that every pound you spend on the economy, you're getting money back. So HMRC would be the first place to start because people go, well, wouldn't people just avoid tax? I'm like, well, let's make sure we employ people to make sure they don't get away with the loopholes and everyone pays their fair share of tax. Also, the green economy.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that's exactly where we need to go to the same rate as income tax. So, well, it's 40% at the moment, is an income tax. So it would be banded. But the reason why that's important.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When people are incredibly wealthy and they live in this country because they love this country, they love culture in this country. They love the, I was going to say the food, I don't know if any of us truly love the food in this country, for living where we live. We don't just move because of a small tax. And so let's get on to the wealth tax. It's a tax on assets, a 1% tax on assets of 10 million pounds or more, or a 2% tax on assets of a billion pounds or more. It's also important to say this is not the only measure. So we also need to bring capital gains tax in line with income tax. The reason why that's important.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, not if there are assets such as buildings. And I think it's a fundamental misunderstanding of what it is to be truly wealthy. Because actually when people are living in poverty or they're just poor in a more general sense, they have to make decisions based on their finances because they're always having to think about it.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is where we need to really differentiate between the small business workers, the small businesses, your hairdressers, your plumbers, who we absolutely need to protect. They're vital part of a thriving local economy, and people who are earning, and in fact, they're not earning it, they're making more money in their sleep than any of us could earn. I shouldn't make presumptions about people's income or wealth, but I'm talking more generally because it's in assets. When people get incredibly wealthy, they put that money into assets because they can't spend all that money even if they could.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I think there's a narrative sometimes, though, that my platform could put off rural communities, but actually evidence is showing over and over again that rural communities are saying we need to challenge wealth and power. And the farmers, by the way, the Green Party, the Friends of the Farmers, we cannot pit ourselves against the people who are crucially important for food security, who understand the land. And yes, there are some farmers who have the same multimillionaires and billionaires we were just talking about, but 80% of farmers are tenant farmers. They're people who are also being screwed over by the supermarkets in the same power system where a renter can be screwed over by an unscrupulous landlord or a property developer. It's all the same pattern. Okay.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Can I answer that though? Yeah, sure. Because I think a key point here is inequality hurts you wherever you live, whether you live in a town, a city, village, or a countryside. And in the countryside, like I remember one time Jeremy Corbyn was talking about rural bus routes and he was kind of laughed at by much of a media as if this was a niche issue. When you go visit those market towns, which I do frequently, I used to say, you know, is there a bus every few hours? They're like, are you joking? Every few days? And I'm like, if you can't get something as basic as a bus that affects employment, but also arguably more important, it affects your family relationships or just people you want to go see and grab a bus with. So those rural green parties, when I talk to them at the moment, they say that there's not just double the people turning up to their local party meetings since I was elected. It's sometimes triple or quadruple. There's a real surge of interest. Now, I'm not complacent. Lots of people at local party meetings does not necessarily win you elections, and we know that. We've seen examples of that. But it doesn't hurt.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Politicians like Donald Trump, who has no interest in anything but Donald Trump, his own vested interests, and will protect his billionaire mates. And so I don't believe you can challenge anything sustainably, either on the environment, the planet, or inequality, unless you challenge wealth and power. And definitely not calling you a liar, Rory, but I would say when you say that my supporters, I think that people who probably know less than 1% about me, because I'm pretty sure anyone who's ever heard me speak or even watched me doing an interview would know that the politics I'm looking to do is a radical transformation of the economy.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, no, but my point is we need socialist links. So another person I spoke to last week was Janice Farafakis looking at what does socialist internationalism look like? What does it look like when we dismantle these corporate structures, which there's lots of criticisms of a wealth tax, one of the number one policies I'm calling for that are absolute nonsense? People can't just move assets. It's not been proven not to work in other countries. We've got Norway, Spain, Switzerland, somewhere with lots of wealthy people. One criticism, though, I do think is legitimate is that we need a global wealth tax. And ultimately, you don't create a global wealth tax unless you have global structures who all work together to make this happen. I think you can make that happen anyway. But to come to the point of your question, absolutely, we do need to dismantle the huge corporations. I mean, it's just obvious, even as I'm saying it, it feels like what I'm saying is so bloody obvious. I say it all the time. It is global corporations that are destroying our planet that have bought off politics.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, globalization is more complicated because there are benefits of globalization. We've just seen Mamdani elected in New York. And I think there's this really exciting moment. My team just this week have met some of his team to have a conversation about what does kind of cross sharing notes look like. I think the right have done that for a long time, those kind of links around Franklin fascism.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“capitalist system is exploitative, it's extractative, it's poisoning our rivers, so the water systems, it's also poisoning our minds. Some of the anti-migrant rhetoric that we've heard have all come from a government that refuses to challenge multimillionaires and billionaires, refuses to challenge these same corporations, and instead is picking on the people who have done the least to cause the crisis in one of the biggest acts of cowardice. And I really believe Shibana Mahmood's comments in recent weeks are vile and the disgusting. And I don't use those words lightly. I think the fact that it's not just migrants, people of color in this country right now tell me constantly that they feel like they don't belong, that there's a conversation happening that feels pretty insidious, that they feel like they're being demonized and marginalized. Don't just feel it. They literally are.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“With the water companies, we have water companies who are pumping sewage into our water and charging us extra for the privilege. Some of those water companies, their profit margins are bigger than Shell.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Say, listen to me for more than 20 seconds because you're pretty much describing my entire political platform. I thought the question was going to come the other way that they felt like I was too radical left or something like that. I'm a socialist. I believe the Green Party is a socialist party. I don't put that label front and center because I think that means different things to different people. And I think can also put people off. And I think that's legitimate. So then I think the job is to say, when you're talking about socialism, what are you talking about?”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“About caring about the environment and wanting to protect it and not sell it off to fossil fuel giants. So the environment is a huge issue and it's one that I take really seriously. And I think when inequality is so deep, you've got to meet people with their living standards, with food on the table, heat in their homes, which is all linked to the climate crisis. That's causing food insecurity. It's just not the first place you come from. The first place you come from is people are tired and exhausted. Their wages aren't going up. Food prices are going up. You are being screwed over as a result of political choices. Let's make different choices.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“About, and I think the comparisons are pretty ludicrous, but I think the biggest difference is he wants to destroy our institutions. He's delighted that the BBC is under fire right now. I think he'd be delighted if a House of Commons started to erode and we had different systems. I fundamentally believe in democratic institutions. I think the problem is the vested interests within those institutions mean they're not working for the people. They are working for the elites. But the way that me and Nigel Farage talk about elites is very different. He literally is the elite. He's a former city trader who pretends to be a man of the people, but he's man of the wealthy people. He calls himself a populist. Populism for me, in fact, the word populism means the 99% versus the 1%. He's literally representing the 1%. So in the same way Farage calls himself a patriot, or Tommy Robinson calls himself a patriot. They're not patriots. There's nothing British about hating your neighbor or wanting to stoke division in this country or selling off our assets to foreign investors. Patriotism is caring about your community. Patriotism is”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think if a COP process didn't exist, you'd have to create it. So we need a mechanism for people to come together. It's in the same way that I have criticisms of the European Union, but I still think Brexit was fundamentally the most catastrophic decision this country's ever made, both economically but also socially and culturally. And it's an imperfect organization. I think all of those things can be true at the same time. So I feel the same about COP, but also, so I went to COP25 in Glasgow because obviously it was just a train ride. There was one panel where I was asked to speak and they paused for panel to put an advert behind me, which was for an insurance company selling water security across some of the poorest nations on earth. And I think it's undoubtedly true. I'd say the same thing about the Labour government, by the way, that it's been so corporate controlled. There's so much money invested interest is now in that organization. There's no meaningful conversation happening in that space. That does not mean that you throw it out. And this is one of the biggest challenges I find about reform and Farage, by the way, because people compare us in terms of the things that we talk about.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's a huge responsibility there. I mean, the climate crisis is an existential threat. There's also a nature crisis. We live in one of the most nature depleted countries of the world. And I often say to people, if we lose nature, that's gone. Nothing else matters. We're all dead and we're gone. COP, though, is more complicated.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the first thing I'd say is that yesterday for the third time there was a poll where we have overtaken the Labour government and we're in second place. Since I was elected leader, we now have 170,000 members. That's 100,000 new members since they've become leader. I think people know that the Green Party care about the environment. In fact, when polling comes out, amongst other parties, we have a most trusted party on the environment. It's obvious.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And the very final thing was I met a Green Party member who I ran against at the London Assembly who said, you are so much more a Green. Everything you're saying means you should be in the Green Party. Here is a ticket to Green Party conference. It's totally free. Go along. You will find the people that you feel like is your natural home. The rest is history.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And again, totally politically inexperienced. I didn't know a huge amount about what I was standing for, but knew that proportional representation in particular was the thing I really cared for. I was there to go get people to commit to proportional representation. Turns out I didn't need to convince an Athlete Bennett at all. She was completely all over it. I've had lots of conversations with Nathalie since about why was the Green Party not talking about proportional representation? They would have gone straight to the Green Party. She said back then we used to get 10 seconds of airtime if that Are we going to talk about something that was quite abstract at that time, a voting system that meant nothing to people or am I going to talk about the climate crisis or indeed back then she was talking about Syrian refugees which again was another thing in those 2015 debates seeing Natalie Bennett talk about Syrian refugees.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Keir Stummer. So, one of the first debates we had, in fact, my very, very first debate ever, he got booed by the audience and I got cheered. And I think it was a sign of things to come. He just kept refusing to answer questions in a very kind of legalistic, very long monotone ways where the chair would be like, you're not answering the question.”
2025-12-01 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 164. Zack Polanski: Do The Greens Have What It Takes? · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source