When he is not wanging on about Gaza, prolific political shapeshifter Zack Polanski loves nothing more than banging the drum for rent controls. The Green leader has claimed that price caps would have saved tenants £3,000 a year had they been introduced in 2022, and put £18 billion of purchasing power back into people’s pockets.
Well, quelle surprise: it seems Polanski did not always embrace such fantasy economics. Indeed, he actively argued against them. Video footage from April 2016 captures the wannabe Che Guevara trying to school his future colleague, Brighton Pavilion Green MP Sian Berry, on why rent controls stifle supply.
At a panel event on housing in London, Polanski is caught saying: ‘I love Sian’s passion about rent caps and rent control, and I would be passionate about them too if they were proven to work.
‘If you look at somewhere like San Francisco, they call it the “Google bust” because what’s happened where they put strict rent controls in is just pure gentrification. There isn’t enough supply because if you’re a landlord you can start to make more demands about who lives in the house, those demands get worst and worst and worst and actually people are just priced out.’
Polanski’s change of heart, of course, comes as no surprise. As a political entrepreneur, he spotted a Jeremy Corbyn-shaped gap for left-wing populism in Westminster and raced to fill it. But these glimpses into his past are always a useful reminder of where he came from – and of what his evolution says about his character…
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