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Greens’ Zack Polanski admits failing to pay correct council tax on houseboat
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 12 May 2026
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UK Politics
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The establishment is absolutely shitting themselves about the greens getting anywhere near power. They would absolutely rather push it to the point of the guillotine rather than just pay their fair share and properly fund society.
Yeah... Obviously not great that Polanski bungled up (no pun intended) what counts as his "main" residence for council tax purposes. But honestly, it happens. I know people to have accidentally failed to register to pay utilities, or forgot to register that they moved and this failed to vote in the election. He's admitting it and paying. That's more than most politicians do when accused of something.
Polanski is definitely taking a lot of flak and every mistake seems like it'll get reported on. Can't wait for a "tan suit" or "Dijon mustard" moment. He's had some questionable things turn up about his past for sure though, sadly.
Either way, it shows the Greens are getting popular and I'll take that. If it turns out Polanski is unfit to lead then hopefully someone else can take his place.
Honestly my biggest takeaway from this is I'm surprised that narrowboats pay council tax at all. (If anyone's interested, it's because it's moored and using the marina bungalow as a contract address. Otherwise there would be no tax to pay).
As for Polanski, from what I can tell, he's not trying to spin it, deny it or avoid it. The amount of money he should have paid is relatively small (literally the lowest band), and he's agreed to pay it plus the penalty.
Yes he's human, and everyone makes mistakes, etc, but he needs to realise he simply cannot make mistakes any more. He has to be superhuman.
Otherwise we'll continue getting a headline per week about the latest stupid thing he's done – and then because he's basically a decent person, he hands them a free "Polanski: 'It was wrong of me to…'" headline every week as well. 🙄
Everyone makes mistakes and it never stops. That's an impossible standard. At some point you need to look at what kind of actions are drawing hostile media scrutiny, and which ones the media turns a blind eye to.
Yeah, the fact it's bullshit and impossible was kind of my point. But that doesn't change the fact that he'll be held to a higher standard by the media than any of the other leaders.
Maybe you have more faith in people's media literacy than I do. 😃
I'm less sure. Where have the Greens made social change elsewhere (in Europe)? At best the Greens are a broad political alliance that will splinter the closer they get to any power.
Every country's Green party is independent of the others. So it's irrelevant what they've done in Europe. Some, like the German Greens, have become establishment centrists like the LibDems here. Others remain radical.
By "radical" what do you mean? Changed the ownership of the means of production? Or enabled policies to ban plastic straws?
What a hypocritical statement. Pay their fair share and this bumbling fool isn't paying his. Hilarious.
Compared to MPs expenses scandal, or Farage's undeclared £5 million (plus his dodgy house buying tactic) and their denial of wring doing or even why people might have an issue each step of the way him owning up, accepting responsibility and paying what's owed and the fine is very much "paying his fair share".
Could he do better? Yes, of course. Is he doing better that most non-Green national level policians? Seems to be.
Don't forget everyone shat the bed over Rayner's recent tax fuckup, so it's only fair.
On par with every other lying politician is a more apt description. There's been so many lies.
I mean, he's a former lib dem not the second coming of Rosa Luxembourg and Simone Weil.
And in response to your other one, politicians who aren't right wing tend to get much more flak for these behaviours.