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The Green Party leader seemingly came out of nowhere. Nobody paid much attention to the Greens until the charismatic Polanski swept to the leadership with 84% of the vote in September 2025. Suddenly, it felt like the whole country was watching. The results have been both startling, and highly predictable. And are a stark warning for new Labour leader Andy Burnham.
Polanski has been in post less than a year and it’s been mad. First, the Greens went bananas, swooning over their charismatic new leader. Membership more than tripled, from 68,000 to 230,000. A similar thing happened when charismatic Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader. He also inspired a huge membership surge. Many will be the same people, political dreamers searching for the next Messiah. The left always seems to need one. But they weren’t the only ones to go crazy.
Keffiah-sporting Gaza obsessives, entryist Islamists and much of the right went bananas too. Finally, so did Zack Polanski himself. Possibly he always was. His critics would say so. They’ve repeatedly mocked him as the “breast whisperer”, after claiming he could make women’s breasts grow in just a few affordable hypnotherapy sessions. There’ll always be a market for that. Just as there’ll always be a market for a left-wing rabble-rouser.
The liberal establishment is prone to short-lived infatuations. Remember how it swooned over charismatic TV personality Russell Brand when he reinvented himself as a left-wing demagogue and denounced profit as a “filthy word”. Brand had a thing about breasts too, although in a different way to the openly gay Polanski. It didn’t end well for Brand, who’s since lost his shine. Corbyn’s messiah-status peaked nine years ago at Glastonbury. Now Polanski is in trouble too.
Polanski has another problem. The left has a brand new Messiah, in charismatic Andy Burnham. The two men have one thing in common. Polanski secured the Green leadership with the votes of just 20,411 party members. Burnham won the Makerfield by-election with 24,000. So now the left has two Messiahs, with a combined mandate of less than 45,000.
Burnham should pay attention. He’s on the up today but give it time. They all come down in the end.
