The Greens’ Urdu ad is Zack Polanski at his worst |
Progressivism is politics as fashion. The product is status and provocation the marketing strategy. The socialist, the liberal and the conservative all address themselves to material circumstances, and aim to transform them radically, gradually, or as little as possible, but the progressive is concerned with the intangibles of life: identity, meaning and self-expression. His radicalism is mostly aesthetic, to be found in the symbol, the signal and the strut, and while it often gloms onto more substantive political programmes it is always concerned chiefly with ideological style.
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Prime example: Zack Polanski. The Green leader is a political fashionista, displaying not a skerrick of principle nor attachment to anything except what is modish in the moment. He joined the Lib Dems in 2015, after five years of them propping up the Tories, then abandoned them in 2017, after they had found their voice again as an anti-Brexit movement. Political trend-chasing is mostly just cringe, but Polanski reminds us that it can be foolish, recklessly so.
Take the Greens’ Urdu election ad urging voters in Gorton and Denton, where only 82 per cent speak English as their main language, to elect Hannah Spencer in Thursday’s by-election. It’s easy to mistake this for inclusivity or good intentions but it is neither. Addressing the electorate along sectarian lines is not inclusive. In fact, it is exclusive.
People with limited proficiency in English find it harder to........