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Hallowe'en arrived early for Sir Keir Starmer last week when an opinion poll found the Greens to be level with Labour. Eek! No wonder the Prime Minister is looking so knackered. Sir Keir's slumbers, already fitful, must be prey to nightmares of a viridescent pumpkin with the jagged teeth of the Greens' leader, the self-styled Zack Polanski. What a pumped-up piece of work this Polanski is. Words geyser out of him, his sentences unhindered by self-doubt. The message is hard, bankrupting Left but it is couched in smooth metropolitanism. How fast he jabbers, flashing his Jaws gnashers, gesticulating like some randy Italian hypnotist while propounding economic theories about 'multiplier economics'. He claims spending alone can support an economy. Private landlords should be abolished. House building should be nationalised. Taxes should be higher and 'unearned income' (from investments such as shares or pension funds) is immoral. So says the sometime Lib Dem boob doctor who was born David Paulden but invented a new name for himself. In two short months he has changed the once-childlike Greens into a sort of Enver Hoxha reincarnation cult. His policies are as mad as his claims, back in his Harley Street days, that he could help women increase their breasts simply using the power of his enormous mind. And yet pollsters suggest he is winning converts. At the last General Election the Green Party did well by disguising the extremity of its Left-wing intentions and courting the naive and prosperous. My home constituency, North Herefordshire, dumped its long-serving Conservative MP and elected a Green. She is pretty posh. Sings in the local choral society and is smiley enough, almost tweedy. Does bang on about Palestine a bit, mind you. In the Commons she talks more about Gaza than our nearby town of Bromyard. In July 2024 the local Tory vote dropped 31 per cent and the Greens rose by 34 per cent. Labour and the Lib Dems, in what seems to have been a secret pact, did as little as possible, Reform grabbed 8,000 votes and the Greens got in by almost 6,000. Some of our neighbours, caravanning retirees, voted for them. So did a titled nonagenarian I know, a Thatcherite with land in Scotland. The Greens put a vast chunk of their national budget into our seat. They flooded us with Boden catalogue-standard leaflets complete with handwritten designs. They talked about furry animals and the River Wye. Trusting souls fell for it and now we have an MP whose party is, basically, communist. The artist known as Zack Polanski is an astute communicator. He dresses for his starring role in the loose monochromes of an elite millennial, tufts of chest-hair visible at his open shirt collar. His voice is fluffed by a lisp. Acolytes think 'how adorable!', even if the rest of us imagine our ears must need a clean. So far the glib radicalism of this rampant egomaniac washes over his devoted disciples. 'This idea that we need to balance the books – it just isn't true,' he claims. He scoffs at the idea financial markets might pull the plug on a government that tried that approach. He has little time for Nato and opposes nuclear deterrence. He doesn't think you can define a woman. And in the Marxist madrassas we used to call our great universities, the rich kids who once automatically voted Labour think 'Zack's the man for us'. I wonder, though, what my millionaire lady acquaintance now thinks. She has stopped mentioning that she voted Green. Modishly beardy, his hairline tight-mown, burly sorcerer Zack, 42, wobbles his head and bounces on his toes to project his impatience and, compared to constipated Keir, a certain youthful energy. His Greens have lurched far to the Left, evangelising for mass immigration, attacking Donald Trump and producing mystic-like pronouncements such as 'we don't need to tax and spend – we need to spend and tax'. What the heck does that mean? 'Public services will generate the economy,' adds the great swami, right eyelid closing slightly, working its throbby power, spreading his unction. Yes, it's nonsense but in the trendier juice bars and matcha cafes, in Home Counties Ayurvedic wellness centres, in Islingtonian bong parlours, Guardianista yogis peer up from their hookahs, eyes smarting from too quick an infusion of the latest mind-altering Polly Toynbee column, and pronounce Zack 'the real thing, man'. All hail the new pied piper. This credulousness is creating panic among Labour MPs. They look at that opinion poll and fear they are doomed. They were told to focus their attacks on Nigel Farage's Reform. Now, as with France's Maginot Line of the 1930s, it seems their guns were pointing in the wrong direction. Labour is now losing more votes to the Greens than to naughty Nigel. About-turn! Ministers have suddenly started disowning Brexit because they think Greenies will approve. Hence, too, the open admission that the 'rich' (ie middle classes) will be clobbered in the coming Budget. Greens want higher taxes? 'We're the party to give you that,' cheeps Labour. Sir Keir's people have let it be known he will now attend the next Cop climate summit in distant Brazil, no matter what that might do to his carbon footprint. It's almost as if the Greens are already in a coalition government. The Morning Star, Britain's Communist daily, attributes the Greens' rise to hard Left-wingers becoming 'disillusioned with the abandonment of progressive politics by the Labour government'. Can't say I noticed that myself, but hey ho. Morning Star readers have also become 'demoralised' by squabbling between Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana in their still-unlaunched new Left-wing party. Has Mr Polanski really won new converts to the Left? Or is he simply being joined by existing Lefties giving up on Magic Grandpa and seeking a jazzier vehicle for their goals? Poll headlines about some national philosophical shift could well be a mirage. Polanski's Greens may simply be the latest embodiment of Corbynism. It is, nonetheless, creating political context for next month's Budget. The Labour Party is being sucked towards the Left-wing weir. Our weak Chancellor may be unable to withstand demands for higher spending and more class warfare. The short-term pain for earners, house owners and pensioners (those wickedly immoral people with their 'unearned income') could be horrible. Longer-term consequences could be sunnier. The more Labour moves Left, the less electable it will become. The Lib Dems, whose whole strategy was based on keeping a few inches to the Left of Labour, is in disarray. And this creates an opportunity for Kemi Badenoch's Conservatives. If Mrs Badenoch can keep her cool and continue her recent improvement in form, she may be back in business. Swing voters expect policies to be rooted in reason. Labour, the Greens and Lib Dems are zealous for Net Zero, higher taxes, fatter benefits and appeasing the EU. Even Mr Farage is reported to be on the verge of dropping Reform's low-tax, benefit-cuts position. That could leave the Conservatives as the only pro-Brexit, anti-Net Zero party proposing the smaller government that is essential for economic growth. Zack Polanski is a threat to Labour MPs. But he could be terrific for Kemi.
