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Polanski accuses Times of ‘scraping the barrel’ over his claim to be charity spokesperson – UK politics live | Politics

Published

2 months ago

May 6, 2026

info@oxinfo.co.uk

Key events

Polanski claims antisemitism amongst Green candidates limited to ‘handful’ of cases – but vetting and training to be beefed up

Zack Polanski has said the Green party will introduce compulsory training to make it clear that antisemitism is “completely unwelcome” in the party.

He was speaking in his Today programme interview when asked about the multiple examples of Green party candidates in the local elections making antisemitic comment. Labour has attacked the Greens relentlessly over this, and today the Daily Mail has splashed on a report accusing 30 Green candidates of antisemitism.

When Nick Robinson quoted some of the worse examples to Polanski, Polanski replied:

Those messages are all unacceptable, and it’s important to condemn that.

The Green party are an anti-racist party, and it’s important that we stick to our values.

When it was put to him that the views of some candidates implied the Greens were not an anti-racist party, Polanski went on:

We’re an anti-racist party. And so what I’ve already committed to doing is making sure that we have a standardised vetting process in future, and also make sure that we have compulsory training of all our candidates to make it clear that antisemitism is completely unwelcome in the Green party, as it is in society.

It’s also important to say one case of antisemitism is one too many.

This is a handful of cases, and actually we have over 4,500 candidates, the vast, vast majority of which are doing amazing work in their communities right now.

Polanski also said this issue was not abstract for him. He is Jewish, and he said two people have been arrested in the past six weeks over threats against him.

Polanski defends Green party’s policy to ‘legalise and regulate’ hard drugs, ‘and the regulate is important’

Zack Polanski defended the Green party’s proposal to legalise hard drugs in his Today programme interview. He stressed that the policy was “to legalise and regulate, and the regulate is important”.

He told the programme

The war on drugs has clearly failed. It has failed in cities right across this country and more and more people are often taking dangerous drugs.

So, do we want people to buy them on the black market or on street corners? Or do we want people to go to a pharmacy or a medical health professional where, if they have an addiction to dangerous drugs, we can work with them to take a public health approach based on harm reduction?

Polanski said this policy would allow the police to spend more time on other problems.

A lot of police time is spent on stop and search for cannabis use, for instance. It doesn’t escape people’s notice that that is often in the politics of racism. If you’re a young black person, I think it’s something like you’re 18 times more likely to be stopped and searched than your white peer, despite the fact there’s no evidence that they’re more likely to to be dealing or using drugs.

And so I think it’s important that we make sure the police time is spent properly, which I think is about community prevention, about cohesiveness and bringing communities together.

Polanski defends being concerned about how suspect in Golders Green attack was treated by police

Zack Polanski defended expressing concern about the way the suspect in the Golders Green stabbings was treated when he was arrested last week.

The Green leader has apologised for reposting a social media message implying the police used excessive force during the arrest. He said he should not have raised this issue in that way.

But, when he was interviewed on the Today programme, he said it was important for people to be treated properly, even if they had done horrific things.

When Nick Robinson, the presenter, put it to him that by reposting the controversial tweet, he was implying that he emphathised with the attacker, not the police officers, Polanski said he did not accept that. He said:

My very first response to the attack was to be horrified, as everyone was, I’m sure, and the first thing I posted was solidarity to the victim, to the family, and indeed, to people who are suffering right now.

Polanski said that he was Jewish himself, and that for Jewish people safety was not an “abstract” issue.

He went on:

Two things can be true at the same time: officers are incredibly brave when they run towards scenes of crimes that most people, including myself, will want to run away from.

At the same time, I think it is accurate, and that I was also traumatised by seeing someone handcuffed and repeatedly kicked in the head …

I think the sign of a compassionate society is how we treat people, even people who have done horrific things, because actually the way we do justice in this country is in court.

Polanski accuses Times of ‘scraping the barrel’ over his claim to be charity spokesperson, saying he just ‘used wrong word’

Good morning. Zack Polanski was largely unknown until he became the Green party leader in September last year and since then, as his party has soared in the polls, there has been intense scrutiny of his pre-politics career. The best-known embarrassing revelation about his past is the fact that he once told a woman he could enlarge her breasts if she listened to his hypnotherapy spiel. Nigel Farage, who also leads a dispruption party enjoying spectacular success, has scandals in his past too, and Polanski’s allies would argue that they are worse. Farage took a £5m donation from a political supporter which he did not declare, he still has not provided as good explanation as to how his partner was able to afford to buy a home in Farage’s Clacton constituency and arguably he told 30 million women that he could enlarge the size of their bank balances if they listened to his spiel on Brexit. Guardian readers can decide for themselves who is more dodgy.

But, as we tell our children, life isn’t fair. And it certainly isn’t fair for leftwing politicians campaigning in an environment where the rightwing media have considerable influence. Polanski discovered that again last night when the Times printed a story with various claims about him, of which the main one related to an allegation about his embellishing his CV. Here is our version by Jessica Elgot.

So it was not hard to guess what the first question would be when Polanski was interviewed by Nick Robinson on the Today programme a few minutes ago.

Asked why Polanski in the past said he was a spokesperson for the British Red Cross when the charity said he wasn’t, Polanski replied:

I hosted various fundraisers for the British Red Cross, and indeed I would go on stage and speak for them about the amazing work they do tackling humanitarian crises, on the climate crisis and indeed for refugees all around the world.

I used the wrong word and I accept that.

But I would essentially take words on stage with me and speak.

It’s important, though, and I accept this, [British Red Cross] don’t support any political party, and I’ve made sure [that claim has] been taken down.

Polanski attacked the Times for publishing what he described as an antisemitic cartoon of him last week. They should apologise for it, he said. And he went on:

It feels some of these stories feel like scraping the barrel to go back 10, 15 years.

I’ve had so many friends – I’m literally talking maybe 20 or 30 in the last few weeks – who have phoned me and said a Times journalist has been phoning and they’ve been desperately trying to find things about your past. They asked me lots of questions and seem disappointed that I didn’t have some juicy, dirty gossip.

There was a lot more in the interview, and I will post more from it soon.

Here is the agenda for the day.

Morning: Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, is campaigning in London.

10am: Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, holds an election rally.

Lunchtime: Rhun ap Iorwerth, the Plaid Cymru leader, is campaigning in Llandudno.

Afternoon: Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, is campaigning in Surrey.

If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (between 10am and 3pm), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.

If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.

I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.

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Four in hospital after bare-chested man with weapon roams around Edinburgh

Published

32 minutes ago

June 20, 2026

info@oxinfo.co.uk

A man was seen battering the door of a pizzeria as members of the public run away on Friday night.

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UK News

England v New Zealand: second men’s Test, day four – live | England v New Zealand 2026

Published

2 hours ago

June 20, 2026

info@oxinfo.co.uk

Key events

WICKET! Phillips c Bethell b Archer 3 (NZ 307-6)

I take it all back! Archer wins the duel, Bethell takes the catch at gully, Phillips has his first flop of the series and I’d like to congratulate Joe Root on his shrewd captaincy.

70th over: New Zealand 307-5 (Mitchell 59, Phillips 3) Root springs another surprise by bringing himself on. An off-spinner against two right-handers – why not Bethell, who moves the ball away from them? Mitchell may be licking his lips, and no sooner have I typed that than he plays a reverse sweep for four to reach fifty, 51 off 68 balls. He follows up with a dismissive cut for four and another reverse for four more. In between, to be fair, Root bowls a crafty arm ball that drifts past the outside edge. But all told that over was a gift to New Zealand.

Drinks: England better, NZ still in charge

69th over: New Zealand 295-5 (Mitchell 47, Phillips 3) Root responds to Phillips’ arrival by bringing back Archer. You can see why, but is it wise? He’s only been off for 20 minutes, and the second new ball is less than an hour away. Maybe it’s just for two overs. Archer duly hones his bouncer and dumps Phillips on his backside, where he spent much of Wednesday evening. And that’s drinks, with England much improved today – more orthodox, more accurate, more threatening – but NZ still leading by 395 runs. They could declare now and win by a street, unless Harry Brook goes bananas.

68th over: New Zealand 293-5 (Mitchell 46, Phillips 2) So here is Glenn Phillips, the batsman of the series, getting off the mark with a confident clip for two. I was at the Oval on Wednesday (many thanks to my son Dan) and Phillips was in a different class from the rest with his decisiveness, not to mention his courage in the face of Archer’s ferocity. If he’d been in the top five at Lord’s, New Zealand might now be closing in on a series win.

67th over: New Zealand 290-5 (Mitchell 46, Phillips 0) Root went for Sonny Baker rather than Fisher, preferring puppyish pace to seasoned precision. But he was wary with his field, posting only one slip. The ploy misfired at first as Baker found some bounce and Mitchell was able to ride it and guide the ball into the wide open space between slip and gully. But then Root, after a chat with Duckett, put himself at leg slip, and it worked a treat. A small triumph for Rew too.

Wicket! Blundell c Rew b Baker 16 (NZ 290-5)

The leg slip comes good! Blundell flicks a full ball off his toes, Root spills it, but Rew cleans up.

To me, … Photograph: Philip Brown/Getty Images

To you. Photograph: Keeran Marquis/SPP/Shutterstock

66th over: New Zealand 284-4 (Mitchell 41, Blundell 15) Two more singles off Tongue’s over. A Sky caption confirms that the ball has been moving more off the seam today than yesterday, so Matt Fisher could be effective.

65th over: New Zealand 282-4 (Mitchell 40, Blundell 14) Singles for both batters and when Archer tries a bouncer he bangs it in too short, so it sails away for four byes. England have already conceded more extras in this innings (16) than New Zealand did in the previous one (9), so the total score in that department so far is England 9, NZ 69.

64th over: New Zealand 274-4 (Mitchell 38, Blundell 12) Mitchell nudges a single, making that last factoid instantly obsolete. Tongue tries to york Blundell, who digs the ball out of his feet, then takes one on the hip bone and winces. Tongue tries the yorker again, and again it gives Blundell no bother. Root moves from slip to leg slip, a ploy he has surely over-used in this game. Keep it simple!

63rd over: New Zealand 273-4 (Mitchell 37, Blundell 12) The sun comes out as Archer continues. He dishes up his first freebie of the day, allowing Blundell to leg-glance for four. Blundell, always busy, even after a hard day’s standing up to the stumps, has raced into double figures and scored all the runs in this partnership.

62nd over: New Zealand 269-4 (Mitchell 37, Blundell 8) Tongue, not at his best in the first innings, is in the groove now. He keeps Mitchell quiet and collects a maiden.

“Looks like the weather at the Oval is on a par with us here in Fuerteventura where I’m enjoying my retirement on paradise island,” says Andy House. It’s all right for some. “No question that an awful chain of events has led to England fielding a team that has proved no match at the Oval for an excellent and battle hardened Kiwi side.

“Call me old fashioned, however but I cannot agree with the general Guardian stance that Stokes and Atkinson have been unfairly punished and that somehow the England team management have brought this crisis upon themselves.

“Actions have consequences and whilst none of us expect either the captain of the England team or his players to be saints, we do expect a certain level of responsibility and common sense from our millionaire elite cricketers not least after the debacle in Australia where I witnessed the final humiliation in Sydney.

“Truth to tell, Stokes and Atkinson thoroughly deserved to be dropped and they owe their team mates big time in the likely 3rd test decider after letting down their fellow players the management and the fans so badly.”

My stance, for what it’s worth, is not that Stokes and Atkinson were unfairly punished. It’s that their team-mates were unfairly punished. In a team sport, suspensions seldom make sense.

61st over: New Zealand 269-4 (Mitchell 37, Blundell 8) Jofra, bowling 87mph, finds the edge yet again as Blundell goes back and pokes with half a bat, but the ball drops short of Root at first slip. If only England had started like this on Thursday morning.

60th over: New Zealand 267-4 (Mitchell 37, Blundell 6) Blundell, who loves joining Mitchell to torment England, tucks Tongue for two and cover-drives for three, uppish but safe.

“Good morning.” says John Starbuck. “I was wondering if James Rew, unfortunately drafted in a bit too soon, should change his name to Roux, seeing it’s been something of a mixture so far.” Ha.

59th over: New Zealand 262-4 (Mitchell 37, Blundell 1) Classic Test bowling from Jofra, who eats left-handers for breakfast. He sauntered in, landed the ball on off stump and angled it away. This time Brook – back in his comfort zone at second slip, not first – took a comfortable catch. Archer then kept it tight to the right-handed Tom Blundell, and England nearly nabbed another wicket as Blundell took a silly single to Ben Duckett, whose throw was on target until it landed on an old pitch and turned into an off-cutter.

WICKET! Nicholls c Brook b Archer 121 (NZ 261-4)

Justice for Jofra! And redemption for Harry Brook.

58th over: New Zealand 261-3 (Nicholls 121, Mitchell 37) At the Vauxhall end, Root goes for experience in the form of Josh Tongue, who has played 11 Tests. He too starts strongly, finding bounce and movement. Henry Nicholls may have a hundred but he hasn’t got his eye in today, and he takes a blow or two to the fingers. But after having some treatment, he calmly dabs a single to get down the other end. He’s the Ollie Pope figure for NZ, the guy they’d already discarded, but they trusted him to replace Kane Williamson and he’s actually been (whisper it) an upgrade.

Dropped!

57th over: New Zealand 260-3 (Nicholls 120, Mitchell 37) You remember those pictures of Jofra howling with frustration last night? He’s already been doing it again. His first ball is a beauty, squaring up Daryl Mitchell and drawing the edge – which is dropped by Harry Brook at slip. Brook has had such a poor match, bringing one great shot when England needed him to be the senior pro. Archer beats Mitchell next ball, and has a shout for LBW against him (going down). Some of the blame belongs to Root, who started with only one slip, then moved himself back in there afterwards. Along the way, the batters calmly collect eight runs, four from that drop. It’s a cruel game.

The players are out there. Joe Root is chatting to Matt Fisher, whose batting gave England a glimmer of hope yesterday morning. And the ball is with Jofra Archer, who will come gliding in from the pavilion end.

England have also missed Ollie Pope. He was the odd-job man under Stokes, ready to take over as the captain or the keeper, and doing both jobs well enough to attract little comment. With hindsight, he would have been a better understudy for Jamie Smith here than poor James Rew. As would Jonny Bairstow.

On Sky they’re talking about … Ben Stokes. He’s been missed as a captain, standing at mid-off, exuding energy, bigging up the bowler with his belief. He’s been missed as a bowler: this morning, at 250 for three, he would be handing the ball to himself. And he’s even been missed as a batter. Scratchy as he has been recently, he can still stick around, as he showed in Australia. With the bat, Ben Stokes has turned into Ben Foakes – the designated driver in a team of drinkers. The whole package means that when he’s there, England have 12 or 13 players, and when he’s not, they have nine or ten.

If you’d like some action right away, there’s a World Cup match just starting in Southampton. It’s another episode in a long-running series: David v Goliath. Do join Megan Maurice to see if Babette de Leede’s bowlers can rattle Australia’s big names.

Preamble

Morning everyone, or should that be hello darkness, my old friend? For England supporters of a certain age, this match has been a flashback to the Eighties. First the management picked the wrong response to Ben Stokes’ and Gus Atkinson’s big night out, suspending them when Harry Brook had merely been fined for a worse offence, perhaps because the ECB was afraid of looking weak. Then, just as fortune favours the brave, so misfortune homed in on the faint-hearted.

England lost the Player of the Match from Lord’s, Ollie Robinson, to injury and their wicketkeeper, Jamie Smith, to the birth of his second child. Suddenly the team had no spine – no captain, no keeper, no new-ball pair. The selectors put their faith in what Micky Stewart, whose name is on the pavilion at the Oval, once called “a lot of inexperience”. Joe Root found himself not so much the stand-in captain as the babysitter.

The kids were all right at first, then fell apart as Root tried too hard to play the Stokes way and get funky with his fields. The New Zealanders, who are known on the circuit as nice guys, have been far more orthodox and more efficient. By the end of yesterday the crowd was witnessing an unprecedented spectacle: the England Lions being fed to the Christians.

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