Not My Cup of Tea

I read the Zack Polanski interview in yesterday's Observer so you don’t have to. It left me with the distinct feeling that the Greens have become the political equivalent of those artisanal bakeries that refuse to sell you a loaf unless you first applaud their ethical commitments. Perfectly charming, but no use whatsoever if you actually want to feed a country.

Polanski huffs that he “wouldn’t touch Starmer with a barge pole”, which is a curious line coming from someone whose party will never have to touch the levers of power at all. It is easy to condemn caution when you’ve no responsibility for the consequences. It is even easier to deliver moral purity when you know you’ll never be asked to deliver a Budget. The Greens do a roaring trade in both.

His entire pitch is that Labour is cowardly, compromised, too managerial, too sensible. That’s because Labour is trying to govern a very real country with very real fiscal holes, not an imaginary republic where every tax raises billions and every public service magically expands the minute you “demand it”. Polanski talks about a 1 per cent wealth tax raising 14 billion a year as though billionaires have no accountants and will politely stand still while he relieves them of it. In the real world, avoidance is as predictable as rain in October, although not as widespread as the Daily Mail predicts.

What’s striking is how the hard constraints never appear. No mention of Brexit’s impact on growth. No recognition that public services are crumbling after 14 years of Tory neglect. No acknowledgement that Starmer must keep the bond markets calm after Truss set them on fire. Instead we get the usual Green comfort food – NATO is questionable, Gaza requires absolute clarity, landlords are the root of all evil, and somehow, through a process never fully explained, all of this will be solved by voting Green.

The foreign policy stuff is airy to the point of levitation. Question NATO membership in 2025? Really? Most voters took one look at Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and quietly concluded that alliances might actually matter. But again, the Greens can say these things with a straight face because they will never have to handle an Article 5 phone call.

Then there’s the performative authenticity. Polanski tells us he is gay, Jewish, proud of who he is, and therefore anyone who wants to attack him will have to “find some other way to hurt me”. It’s honest and vulnerable, but it also floats just above the political substance like a personal footnote looking for a purpose.

The truth is simple. The Greens offer purity without power, certainty without consequence, and criticism without cost. It’s all very Stoke Newington – immaculate principles, sustainably sourced, and entirely divorced from the dull, grinding realities of governing a medium sized European nation with a flatlining tax base.

So no, it’s not really my cup of tea. More like a lukewarm herbal infusion sold by someone who insists you admire the mug before being allowed to drink it.

Mind you, Polanski could be my cup of tea if Putin were a Green. In that alternate universe, where the Kremlin was run on quinoa, composting and moral incantation, his brand of weightless idealism might actually look hard headed. If the world were governed by men who plant trees instead of tanks, then fine - give me all the ethical signalling you like. But in a world where the real Putin is busy rewriting borders with artillery, I need my politicians to operate on something sturdier than vibes. Polanski is charming enough, but he’s playing the recorder while the rest of us are trying to stop the brass section marching through the wall.