Neither Green MPs nor anyone from the Lambeth Green Party, which is trying hard to make inroads into prize London Labour territory, has bothered to spell Polanski’s name correctly in their latest video. Believe it or not it’s his first name they’ve mucked up…
New Green MP Hannah Spencer, the Lambeth Green branch, and its main election candidate have all posted a video of Spencer at a local event. In which she waxes lyrical about supreme leader “Zach”…
“Because in the Greens, we are different to every other party. We do not believe in a hierarchy where our leader tells us what to do. As much as we love Zach [sic], he’s not our boss.”
Polanski – under fire from all sides for his intervention in the Golders Green situation – has been saying no to broadcast media bids today before apologising for his retweet this afternoon. Rattled?
Father Ted co-creator and pro-women campaigner Graham Linehan has had his criminal damage conviction overturned. It must be Friday…
Linehan was found guilty of damaging a transgender activist Sophia Brooks’ phone during an altercation in Westminster on 19 October 2024. At Southwark crown court judge Mrs Justice Amanda Tipples overruled his conviction:
“Having considered all the evidence before us, we cannot be sure that the damage to the complainant’s phone was caused by Mr Linehan on the evening of the 19th of October 2024. We therefore found Mr Linehan not guilty of the offence.”
So ends that ordeal…
Green leader Zack Polanski has apologised for his retweet following the Golders Green attack and a furious response from Met Commissioner Mark Rowley. He says:
“Everyone in leadership has a responsibility for lowering the temperature at a time of such tension, and I apologise for sharing a tweet in haste. Police responses to emergency situations such as these do need later reflection in the right forums, but I accept that social media is not the appropriate channel for doing so. I have invited Mark Rowley to meet with me to discuss the police response and the wider issues raised in his letter.”
Tail firmly between the legs there…
Only 3.3% of the people who have been dragged into the first batch of Making Tax Digital requirements have attended one of HMRC’s explanatory webinars. No one is ready for the coming carnage…
Making Tax Digital requires in-scope individuals to move from using the traditional Self Assessment portal and instead keep digital records in HMRC-recognised software and submit four quarterly updates per year, followed by a Final Declaration. It is dragging increasing numbers of self-filers into the system:
HMRC have been running – and advertising – webinars for different groups on the system since 10 April last year. Guido’s FOI Unit has found that up to 2 April this year there were only 15,069 attendees of any webinar for landlords and joint property owners, and only 13,436 attendees of any webinar for sole traders or landlords without an accountant or bookkeeper. That is 28,505 attendees in total which is 3.3% of this year’s additions to the system…
It is also 0.98% of the total 2.9 million to join the system by the end of the Parliament. HMRC says: “We are continuing to facilitate MTD educational webinars and have events currently scheduled up to the end of June 2026.” After that you’re on your own…
Labour is preparing a frantic last-minute operation to get the vote out in London. Rattled…
Take this communiqué emailed to Labour members in St Giles ward in Southwark and leaked to Guido. This should be safe for Labour…
Southwark has seen doorknocking visits from both Angela Rayner and Andy Burnham in recent weeks, which indicates the level of concern. Next week it’s Lucy Powell…
Highlights include only delivering to council estates and not to street addresses on polling day and trying to co-operate with the Greens at polling stations:
“If Labour is to retain all 3 seats in St Giles Ward at the election on Thursday then our Polling Day operation will be vital to that success. The Greens will be mounting a full-on campaign on the day to get their vote out. We have to match and better that. This means members will have to step up to the plate and devote as much time as they can on the day. There are two principal roles members can play on the day – polling station tellers and knocking on the door of Labour supporters to get them to vote.1. TellersThis is a vitally important role. In essence you sit outside one polling station and write down the numbers off electors polling cards as they come/exit to vote. The Greens will be here too but are usually friendly and you can share the data from one another during busy periods. The reason for doing this role is because every hour the numbers are collected and returned to our committee rooms and the identified Labour voters are crossed off our overall list. This means we don’t waste time knocking them up to vote later on the day and we can focus on those Labour voters who haven’t voted yet.There are 6 polling stations open from 7am to 10pm. This means 6.x 15 hours = 90 hours to get covered. Therefore we need as many members as possible to offer up their time whether for an hour or more and perhaps splitting between morning, afternoon and evening sessions. Without members volunteering to do this we will lose this critical part of our operations on the day which will result in a lower Labour turnout and the potential loss of seats.2. Knocking-UpDuring the day we will need members to knock on the doors of Labour promises to ensure they come out and vote on the day. As with tellers you can split your time to help out during different parts of the day. Again without this activity occurring it will result in a lower Labour turnout and the potential loss of seats.3. Early morning leaflet dropFor those insomniacs amongst you there will be an early leaflet drop reminding electors to vote between the hours of 5-7am. We will only be delivering this to the estates and not the street properties.All the above roles are not mutually exclusive so you can try your hand at all of them if you so wish. The main Labour Committee Rooms for the day will be based at [REDACTED] you can pop in and out of there all day and there will be drinks and refreshments on hand.Please volunteer as the more hands we get will make light work on the day.Please step forward and help secure our 3 Council seats for Labour!”
Starmer spoke to Nick Robinson for the Today Programme on Polanski’s criticism of the Golders Green police officers:
“I want everybody just to imagine what it might be like. You’re trying to arrest someone who has already attacked two people and has no regard for life. We know that tasers were fired. I know from my own experience with the police, that there are only two shots in a taser, and once you’ve shot them, there’s nothing left. There’s a guy on the ground, he’s got a rucksack on. And I don’t know what was going through the mind of those officers, but if I was there, I’d be thinking, he’s going to detonate something. He’s going to blow me up and everybody around here. In those circumstances, I think you can quite see why what could have gone through their mind is, we need to do whatever we can to disable this guy…
Now, when I then see Zack Polanski come out and retweet or support a criticism of that, I think it’s disgraceful… He’s not fit to lead any political party.”