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The Bottomless Hypocrisy of the Left

Posted on 14/05/26 in Politics

Whenever The Guardian mentions Tommy Robinson in an article, it invariably appends in parenthesis, “(real name, Nigel Yaxley-Waxley)” or whatever it is. It does this to draw attention to Robinson’s being a phony. This is perfectly reasonable, good journalistic practice.

But that raises the question as to why, whenever it mentions Zack Polanski, it never appends “(real name, David Paulden)”. The reason why not, of course, is that it would draw attention to Polanski’s being a phony. This is also reasonable, but hypocritical – indicative of The Guardian‘s fundamental bias and untrustworthiness.

It is characteristic of the left and its hero worship in general. I recently watched an edition of Have I Got News For You? with Sheila Hancock, Senna Pod of happy memory but now a leftie grande dame. As Ian Hislop quite properly took the piss out of Polanski (real name, David Paulden), Hancock responded with the defence that it was all so trivial, and everyone was smearing the poor chap. Well, had it been Farage under attack for a similar litany of things (pretending to be a spokesman for the Red Cross, advocating odd breast enlargement treatments), we would never have heard the last of it. But because Polanski tickles tummies, he can’t be criticised, even in jest.

Nevertheless, when his policies are put under scrutiny, my God are they ridiculous. His spending plans make Corbyn look like Geoffrey Howe. Indeed, his unfunded promises dwarf those of Liz Truss, at whom lefties (quite properly) love to laugh. But at least the hapless Truss had a goal – economic growth. Had she a political bone in her body, she would have got her message across that her policies would have increased the tax take thanks to growth, and also set out the measures she would have put in place to restore fiscal prudence had that not happened. That may or may not have been a defensible position, but it is not open to Polanski, who would prefer to have no economic growth at all, consistent with the 2024 manifesto, which argued “Despite the other political parties continuing to argue that endless economic growth is the solution to all our problems, there is a growing consensus it is actively undermining our wellbeing.” So he has even less comeback to the question of how he is to fund his proposed spending than Truss – yet Truss is a figure of fun, while Polanski still attracts the left. He wants to reduce energy use, for which surely the simple route is to increase energy prices, but, always keen to buy votes, he actually wants to lower them, suggesting £8.4bn could be set aside to cover potential increases. Thus spending billions to keep energy use, er, too high (i.e. what he accuses fossil fuel companies of doing). This is idiotic, but find someone on the left who will say so, even those who don’t vote Green.

And then there are his tax troubles. It is not only Polanski who gets treated with kid gloves – anyone out of the mainstream who likes to make trouble is thus favoured. Angela Rayner’s tax troubles too are, we are assured, an honest mistake (and she has, with exquisite timing, been cleared of wrongdoing by HMRC) – but the same would not be said for Reform politicians (or indeed of Wes Streeting, were his tax affairs not above board). It was certainly never said by Angela, who had a profitable sideline attacking others’ tax solecisms. Yet this will probably not knock her off the favourite’s spot to succeed Sir Keir. And so Rayner’s hypocrisy is compounded by that of her supporters, who continue to cheer her on notwithstanding.

A left wing verb clause declension: