𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

What a horrid and divided nation we are becoming. As the mother of all Parliaments gets ready to welcome its third member for Gaza South, Starmer’s “nation of strangers” is starting to look like a soft option. What we are actually becoming is a nation of adversaries. Be honest, you’d rather Labour had won in Gorton and Denton on Thursday wouldn’t you?

Especially if you are an actual Green. I mean a poor old proper Green voter, the type to worry about windmills and nuclear power; because their party has been hijacked by reactionary sectariansists. Little mini-fascists really.

Hannah Spencer might come across as a little bit dim. But her campaign had the cynicism, the division and the championing of causes so foreign to this land it made your jaw drop, first of all there was her secrecy.

Never in 30-odd years of covering politics have I come across a prospective MP whose background was left as deliberately and as dangerously opaque as Hannah’s. What was she hiding? Well, there’s her £1.2million property portfolio in super-posh Cheshire – or WAG-central as it’s known – for a start.

She likes to come across all ‘relatable woman-of-the-people’ and “I’m just a ‘fik plumber me” – but her partner is Associate Principal Scientist at AstraZeneca. Or at least he was in 2023 when she filled in the register of members interests at Trafford Council. So, 34-years-old and in possession of a property portfolio worth £1.2million and a partner earning well in excess of six figures.

Yep, just like the average couple in every Levenshulme terraced house. Oh, and I assume you thought the Greens manifesto was against the scourge of grasping second-home owners and the loathed Big Pharma didn’t you?

Not our Hannah, she’s well-up for both! I mean half of me thinks “well done love” and the other half thinks “you loathsome cheating hypocrite”. I guess you can make your own minds up.

But naughty Hannah rather hid one or two other things too while she was using Gaza as a smokescreen… and a lot of conservative Muslims (something of a tautology) who voted Green in Gorton will no doubt have woken up this morning saying “hang on… she wants to legalise drugs? And prostitution? And boost trans-rights? And assisted dying and abortion… I didn’t vote for that!”

Er, yes you did. Bit late for buyers’ remorse now. Just wait ‘till they find out Zak Polanski’s Jewish! What is evidenced here, at risk of starting the bleedin’ obvious, is that the left getting into bed with the religious right in our Muslim communities is a pact with the devil.

Neither trusts the other side but both have something to gain. It’s classic sleeping with the enemy. But it seems being able to hold two polar opposite views simultaneously is the key to success in Zak Polanski’s Green Party.

It’s how Hannah can claim to support women’s rights then get into bed with the most reactionary religion on the planet whose sexual politics are notoriously mediaeval. (She celebrated her appearance at a Mosque claiming to champion women while at the same time obsequiously wearing the male-dictated headscarf et al. Girl Power!)

I have a terrible fear that Hannah Spencer is too thick to see what she has done, weaponising the politics of division. But I think Zak Polanski is clever enough to see exactly what he has done.

Does anyone really think it was Hannah’s idea to make a propaganda video in Urdu stating: “The Reforms (sic) want to break up our communities. They want to deport families who have lived here for years, and they want to tax people born abroad even more. They give air to Islamophobia, and they put our safety and dignity at risk. But there is another way…”

And the even more jaw-droppingly lacking in self-awareness “We hit all 14 mosques this Friday – 14/14! Thank you, everyone…

“Our Ramadan cards went down a treat.”

“Do you attend evening Taraweeh at any of these mosques? If so, can you help with leaflets and conversations after prayers?”

Nah, that was Zak, And if that isn’t blatant, cynical, patronising, dangerous sectarianism I don’t know what is.