SARAH VINE: I was among the first to call Polanski a creep. Thank heavens the nation’s now catching on

Like As someone who has been watching these elections from behind the sofa, like a particularly frightening episode of Doctor Who, I find myself somewhat relieved by this week’s local election results, in which an alien race – let’s call them ‘The Polanskis’ – have hypnotized the nation into believing they can not only enlarge women’s breasts but also miraculously give them penises.

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

I’m not actually a Reformation fan, but if the choice was 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 turned out to be less of a tsunami than expected. Of course, the Greens have made some gains. Earlier yesterday evening they had won just 289 seats compared to Reform’s 1,229 seats.

But it seems the voters woke up at the last moment and saw the light.

The Greens, of course, had major victories in Hackney and much of East London. But honestly, they welcome it. These places have always been microcosms of far-Left enthusiasm and marginalized political views; what was important was that they had made concrete gains, for example at Westminster. But that went (back) to the Conservatives.

I wish more of them went this way. This would be a real victory for common sense. I don’t know how anyone can look at Kemi Badenoch and not see her as the only serious political leader in Britain today.

The Conservative Party could have done much worse, and these little green shoots at least show that it has finally succeeded.

Of course, he still has a lot of work to do to rebuild trust in his party. But as an individual he polls far ahead of any other leader, thanks largely to his exciting skills in the House of Commons.

But in the wider world, he is still haunted by recent memories of failed Tory policies and the failure of the overall Conservative Party. Still, he knows it and is more than ready for the challenge.

What is remarkable is not where he is today, but how far he has come, which is actually very far, not a starting point buried five feet under. Losing ‘only’ 472 seats may not seem like a victory; until you remember that it was predicted to lose 600 seats.

The Liberal Democrats’ quiet success in these local elections is also encouraging. Altogether, these results show that for all the fire and fury, for all the anger-mongering and general circus of fools, Britain ultimately remains a small conservative country with relatively little appetite for radical, sectarian or revolutionary politics.

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

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

In my view, these policies alone are enough to label him a creep, because the only people who can benefit from this are drug dealers, organized criminals, and those who exploit the weak and defenseless for personal gain. No self-respecting politician should ally with such groups.

Sarah Vine says sunlight is the best disinfectant. The more they see Polanski, the more they’ll doubt him. His reaction to last week’s Golders Green stabbing was a classic example

And that’s before we talk about the anti-Semitic elements in his party, of which there are many examples. Largely thanks to this newspaper, many Green candidates are currently under investigation for sharing inflammatory or anti-Semitic material online, including comparing Zionism to Nazism, repeating old tropes about Jews and money, and accusations of ‘false flag’ operations related to the 7 October attack.

But as a politician, if you turn to unsavory ideologies in pursuit of easy votes, that’s what you get.

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

His reaction to the stabbing of two Jewish gentlemen in Golders Green last week was a classic example. He shared a post about This sparked a rare public response from Met commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, who condemned the comment as “inaccurate and misinformed”.

Polanski later apologized for hastily posting, but later went deeper after claiming he was ‘traumatised’ by seeing the suspect ‘handcuffed and kicked in the head’.

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

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

Many were quick to point out that this was a bit rich coming from a woman representing a party that wanted to legalize cocaine-laced drinks on the High Street.

I always think that local elections are a bit like award ceremonies. When they succeed, the parties claim to have achieved a great victory; When they do something bad, they find them indifferent and ignore them. But this time, I think they serve the useful purpose of showing many people who and what the Greens really represent.

In other words, a group of rather evil, militant, occasionally racist narco-communists who are as far from the touchy-feely image Polanski likes to project as possible.