On Sunday night, the Green party booked out the famed gay London nightclub, Heaven, for what they said was going to be a ‘Green Party party.’ I paid the £16 ticket fee, donned my bright green Robin Hood outfit and trotted off to Embankment, where under a bridge the club resides.
Zack Polanski was billed as the night’s headliner, and at 9:20 p.m. he arrived. He opened with typical Green party patter, asking the crowd whether they were ‘ready to take on power and wealth’, and then proudly reflected on his time working as a security guard for Heaven. When he appealed to the crowd to ‘big it up for security’, people shouted: ‘No!’
The buzzwords and soundbites kept coming
From there, the speech slipped easily into monotony and repetition. Polanski went on to say that ‘there never seems to be any money or wealth for the nighttime economy [yet] there is always wealth for multi-millionaires and billionaires. They have taken our power, our wealth, our democracy and we are here to take it back.’ There was no reference to the fact that the top 1 per cent of earners today actually contribute more to total income tax revenue then at any other point in British history, and no mention either that their contribution is increasing – from 21 per cent of the total income tax revenue to 25 per cent in 2010 and 29 per cent today.
The buzzwords and soundbites kept coming. ‘The real threat is flying above our heads, in private jets,’ Polanski said. What would his policy be towards those who own private jets? We know Polanski likes the idea of a wealth tax. Would that work? When France introduced a wealth tax, some 42,000 millionaires fled the country and took their money with them. Spain reintroduced its Net Wealth Tax in 2011. Soon after, taxpayers had started moving assets from taxable to non-taxable wealth. To do this whilst the UK is already experiencing an exodus of wealth would be disastrous. In 2024, close to 700,000 people living in the UK sought happier pastures abroad.
In the closing stretch of his speech, Polanski argued that ‘In 106 days’ time, right across London… we will get Greens elected.’ (Despite current polling putting the Greens in fourth place in the capital.) After he concluded, the DJ remarked that Polanski was, ‘the hero we have been waiting for’. The Green party leader took off his rainbow jumper to reveal a shirt that read, ‘Vote Hope’.
By the end of the night, the Greens had failed to win me over. They can fill a nightclub, but this did little to prove to me that they could run the country.
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