SARAH VINE: I used to be among the many first to name Polanski a creep. Thank heavens the nation’s now catching on

As someone who has been watching these elections from behind the sofa, in the manner of an especially frightening episode of Doctor Who in which an alien race – let’s call them ‘the Polanskis’ – hypnotise the nation into believing that not only can they make women’s breasts larger, they can also miraculously give them penises, I find myself slightly relieved with this week’s local election results.

They say there are no perfect solutions in politics, only least bad ones, and that pretty much sums it up for me.

I’m not really a fan of Reform but if it’s a choice between Nigel Farage and Zack Polanski, I’ll take the old, chain-smoking scourge of Brussels over a virtue-signalling charlatan any day of the week.

The Polanski-wave has turned out to be less of a tsunami than expected. Sure, the Greens have made some gains. By early evening last night they had gained just 289 seats, compared with Reform’s 1,229.

But it seems that at the last moment the electorate has woken up and seen the light.

The Greens had big wins in Hackney, of course, and most of East London. But quite honestly, they’re welcome to it. Those places have always been microcosms of far-Left fervour and marginalised political views; what would have been significant is if they had made concrete gains in, say, Westminster. But that went (back) to the Conservatives.

The Greens had big wins in East London (mayor-elect of Hackney pictured with Zack Polanski), but they’re welcome to it. Those places have always been microcosms of far-Left fervour

I wish more had gone that way. That would have been a real victory for common sense. I just don’t know how anyone can look at Kemi Badenoch and not see in her the only truly serious political leader in Britain today.

The Tories could have done far worse, and these small green shoots do at least indicate that she is finally cutting through.

Of course, she still has a huge amount of work to do rebuilding trust in her party. But as an individual, she polls way ahead of all the other leaders, in large part thanks to her electrifying skills in the Commons.

But in the wider world she is still hamstrung by the recent memory of failed Conservative policies and general Tory cock-ups. Still, she knows this, and is more than up for the fight.

The remarkable thing is not so much where she stands today, as how far she has come, which is very far indeed, not so much a standing start as buried six feet under. ‘Only’ losing 472 seats may not seem like a victory – until you remember that she was predicted to lose 600.

The quiet success of the Lib Dems in these local elections is also encouraging. Altogether, these results show that despite all the fire and fury, all the rage-baiting and general circus of cretins, Britain remains ultimately a small-c conservative country with relatively little appetite for radical, sectarian or revolutionary politics.

Which brings us back to the Greens. I take some satisfaction in having been one of the first mainstream commentators to point out what an unutterable creep Polanski is, and I stand by that statement. Even more so, given intervening events.

My article, written back in February, infuriated the man himself and his supporters. But all I did was point out his insane list of policies – from legalising all drugs, including class As such as crack cocaine, heroin and the date-rape drug GHB, and building ‘direct partnerships’ between the UK and South American drug cartels, to legalising prostitution and making pornography ‘more accessible’.

Those policies alone are enough to characterise him as a creep, in my view, since the only people who stand to benefit are drug dealers, organised criminals and those who exploit the weak and vulnerable for personal gain. No self-respecting politician should ally him or herself with such groups.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant, says Sarah Vine. The more they see of Polanski, the more they will doubt him. His response to the Golders Green stabbing last week was a classic example

And that’s before we’ve even mentioned the anti-Semitic elements in his party, of which there are many examples. Thanks in large part to this newspaper, several Green candidates are currently under investigation for sharing incendiary or anti-Semitic material online, including comparing Zionism to Nazism, repeating tired old tropes about Jews and money, and accusations of ‘false flag’ operations in relation to the October 7 attack.

But that’s what you get as a politician when you pander to unpleasant ideologies in pursuit of easy votes.

But sunlight is the best disinfectant. Just as the more the voters see of Badenoch the more they seem to like the cut of her jib, the more they see of Polanski and his party, the more they will doubt him.

His response to the stabbing of two Jewish gentlemen in Golders Green last week was a classic example. He shared a post on X accusing police officers of ‘repeatedly and violently kicking a mentally ill man in the head’ while they tried to restrain the attacker, who was refusing to drop his weapon. This prompted a rare public response from the Met commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, who denounced the comment as ‘inaccurate and misinformed’.

Polanski later apologised for sharing a post in haste – but then dug himself in even deeper after he later claimed he was ‘traumatised’ by seeing the suspect ‘handcuffed and kicked in the head’.

When people pointed out that the man had not been handcuffed and was indeed still holding the knife, he left it to a party spokesman to say he had ‘misspoken’.

Even Polanski’s poster girl, Hannah Spencer, the newly-elected MP for Gorton and Denton, has lost some of her shine after she complained about drinking in the House of Commons.

Many were quick to point out that this was a bit rich coming from a woman who represents a party that wants to legalise drinks laced with cocaine on the High Street.

Local elections are a bit like awards ceremonies, I always think. When parties do well, they claim a great victory; when they do badly, they dismiss them as irrelevant. But this time, I think they’ve served a useful purpose all round, which is to expose to many who and what the Greens truly stand for.

In other words, a group of rather nasty, militant, occasionally racist narco-communists who are about as far removed from the touchy-feely image Polanski likes to project as you can possibly get.