When commentators like Quentin Letts sharpen their claws, it usually means someone’s doing something right.
After spending years targeting Angela Rayner with snobbery and sexism, the right-wing press has found its next target: Zack Polanski, the newly elected leader of the Green Party.
When commentators like Quentin Letts sharpen their claws, it usually means someone’s doing something right. And with Polanski stepping into a major political role, it didn’t take long for the usual suspects to line up their tired arsenal of sneers, smears, and snide remarks.
Letts, the Daily Mail’s long-standing parliamentary sketch writer, wasted no time. Known for his perennial war against the so-called “liberal elite,” Letts has a history of mistaking prejudice for wit. In 2017, he pulled out a bizarre homophobic jibe at Labour’s Wes Streeting, comparing the MP to ‘a lady’s hairdresser.’
Two years earlier, he had devoted an entire column to ‘Why I hate Hampstead hypocrites!’, attacking the Milibands, the Foots, and the Kinnocks, as being the “essence of Hampstead Leftishness.”
So, when Zack Polanski became the first Jewish leader of a major UK party since Ed Miliband, Letts pounced.
“His jagged, gapped teeth had shades of Hannibal Lecter. Better watch out,” was the headline.
And it got worse.
“The Greens unveiled their new leader amid Yuppie whoops, group hugs and a faint smell of avocado moisturiser,” Letts sneered.
“The new supremo is Zack Polanski, 42, a smooth-talking vegan and ex-Lib Dem hypnotherapist who used to tell women they could think their way to a bigger bust. Mr Polanski may have his knockers but he has now persuaded the boobies of the Greens that he can expand their presence at Westminster six-fold.”
But in a delicious dose of karma, if Letts thought he was firing up the base, readers had other ideas.
The comments section lit up, but not in the way the Mail probably hoped.
“They’re worried. They’re very, very worried,” one reader wrote. “Zack Polanski has been leader of The Greens for five minutes, and they’re already s******g themselves about someone getting in the way of Uncle Nigel’s meteoric rise to the top. Remember what The Mail’s idol Thatcher said? “I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.” Oops.”
Another noted the disturbing undertones of Letts’ piece, asking: “What is up with your rank antisemitism?”
Others pointed to the childlike attacks on personal appearance.
“Oh, give it a rest!” wrote another exasperated reader: “Zack Polanski clearly has you rattled if all you can do is stoop to personal digs about his appearance. It’s the same old tactic – just like when Jeremy Corbyn started gaining real momentum, and suddenly the headlines were all about how ‘scruffy’ he looked. When the arguments run dry, the cheap shots come out. People are waking up to it now.”
And then, this gem:
“What a headline. The best argument against him is a gap in his teeth?”
And this: “Resorting to attacks on someone’s appearance….you absolute child.”
In truth, Polanski’s election signals a pivotal moment, not just for the Greens, but for the wider left. His leadership opens the door to energising younger, environmentally conscious voters, and potentially pulling support away from Reform.
And that’s exactly what seems to be keeping the right-wing commentariat up at night.
Because if this is the best the Mail’s top political sketch writer can muster, then Polanski is clearly doing something right, and even Mail readers can smell the desperation.
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