Whenever "Tommy Robinson" appears in the meejah it is customary to add "whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon". But somehow it never seems necessary to add "real name David Paulden" to mentions of that remarkable political chameleon and all-round showman "Zack Polanski".
Part of this is to do with the meejah's unfailing instinct to be ultra-hesitant when contemplating a hatchet job on a new, rising political star who might one day hold the reins of power; and who even in the shorter term might not be willing to grant interviews etc if they are treated unkindly. Well, Zach certainly qualified for this auto-deference all through his meteoric rise to prominence last year. So of course did Kier Starmer, on an industrial scale, all through 2022-24. Even Farage still gets a bit of auto-deference, and there's nothing new-fangled about him - just his remarkable lead in the polls.
But all these happy honeymoons come to an end. Starmer was rapidly turned on with a combination of fury and glee by even the 'left/liberal' meejah: they knew they'd been duped, and he wasn't long in office before he presented them with plenty of pretext.
And surely, "Polanski" has it coming soon - even when the Greens do well this week.
Because he's quite clearly a ... real piece of work, as well as being as slippery as a greased eel. The Economist recently did a neat, gentle, but highly pointed mini-hatchet job on his being an "ego-surfing" social media narcissist-obsessive, and extremely thin-skinned and vengeful with it. Have a read - there's lots going on beneath the surface there. Clearly plenty in the meejah have got his number and are just waiting.
And there have been other straws in the wind. A while back he did a podcast with the Rest is Politics team where they bounced him with a totally legitimate question on which economists guide his thinking on financial policy. Clearly caught out, he blustered ineffectually - pretty damning for the leader of a would-be major party. Afterwards, Rory Stewart let it be known that in the post-interview wrap-up, "Polanski" rounded on them and said (my recollection here) something to the effect of "Hey, why didn't you tell me you were going to ask that? You know I'm just a showman: I'd have boned up on it it you'd told me".
Is anyone surprised?
And for all his breezy hyper-adroitness on the stump, he's relentlessly digging holes for himself, presumably based on that thin-skinned egoism which seems to come with a strong aversion for being seen to back down. He's lied about, but not totally resiled from, his "bust-boosting hypnotism" past. And note the "not happy about unarmed coppers kicking murderous knifeman" episode of last week: he's crafted a clever-clever faux-apology but is clearly intending to maintain and even pursue the substance of his intervention.
I think we know which of his constituencies he reckons this is a dog-whistle for (with May 7 just around the corner): but he ain't gonna get far with this line of sectarian adventurism before some hefty pushback.
Have a care with the wording of any BTL contributions. I'll let you know if this post gets taken down!
ND
