Mad, Sad and Bad with Paloma Faith - Zack Polanski: Reform Want To Protect The 1%

Episode Date: March 3, 2026

Green party polls and membership are at an all time high, and there is one name at the centre of it all: THE Zack Polanski!! In just six months, he and his team have tripled its membership to nearly 190,000 - and it’s growing rapidly.At a time of climate collapse, abuses of power (recently exposed in the Epstein files) and multiple genocides, he represents something rare…hope.Openly gay, socialist and unapologetically vocal about minority rights, he’s also comfortable admitting when he’s wrong, which feels pretty radical in today's world. I put on my “I <3 Zack” t-shirt to talk about what it really means to make politics accessible, why we shouldn’t vote Reform, and his questionable acting stint in America…Find us on: Instagram / TikTok / YouTube#ZACKPOLANSKI #PALOMAFAITH #MADSADBADCredits:Producer: Emilia GillAssistant Producer: Alex ReedAdditional Assistant Producer: Lydia BrownellVideo: Josh Bennett, Jake Ji and Lizzie McCarthy Sound: Rafi Amsili Geovannetti Original music: BUTCH PIXYSocial Media: Laura CoughlanExec Producer for JamPot: Ewan Newbigging-Lister Exec Producers for Idle Industries: Dave Granger &Will Macdonald Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Paloma Faith and this is my show. Each week I welcome someone fantastic into my home to talk about what makes them mad, sad and bad. Roll recording. Okay, Paloma. I love that T-shirt on. I love it. Sorry, it's weird. No, it's really sweet.

I've had Samuel L Jackson on this podcast. No one is more exciting than you. I'll take that. You didn't have I love time of your. I didn't even have a t-shirt of his name one. And this house is full today because everyone in the world wants to meet you. To you, today's guest is the man who's turned the perception of the Green Party upside down, turning it from a minority party to frontrunner in the political debate.

Him and his team have tripled its membership in six months to 190,000 and growing. In an era of climate crisis, exposure of extreme abuses of power in the Epstein files, and several genocides, as well as an American president who seems to have lost the plot entirely. He is a breath of fresh air. Openly gay, socialist, a powerful spokesperson for minority groups, especially a disheartened middle and working class, and comfortable admitting when he's wrong, which all good leaders are, he feels like exactly what we need.

He's a real representation of hope and truth with the radical idea that you might be a likable and comprehensible, politician. But to me, I met him on an anti-genocidal march for Palestine and didn't even know who he was. He was an unassuming man and someone I'd actually be friends with, irrespective of what he did. Not something I could say for many other politicians, but since then I stand firm that he may be the only political leader who will stick to his word in a pool of full of lies. It's the amazing, Zach Polanski. Oh, thank you. That was so lovely. I'm going to turn the down to my alarm clock if ever I'm feeling down. I'm just going to listen to Poloma saying

lovely things. Well, you said lovely things about me to the independent reason. It was true, the most iconic lender. You were like, it's plover. I was like, it's me. You know where you don't know where an answer comes from? They said it. And I was like, who's the most iconic? I just saw a big image of you in my mind. And I was like, go with it. Why do you think people keep voting for the bad guys? It's true. It's like big question. Yeah. I think there's been billions of spent on propaganda telling us we don't deserve any better, things can't be, you know, different, change isn't possible. And I think we've all got a job. And when I say all, I mean politicians and I mean artists too and the amazing work you've been doing for a long time. Because actually

storytelling, I think, is at the key of all of this. We can get, like, statistics and data is important, but I think people don't respond to that. And you can spend all of your time saying, oh, no, it's not immigrants who are the problem, you know, people who are fleeing from their life on small boats because that's only 5% of migration. But actually lots of people are in their feelings and they don't hear that. And I think people vote for the bad guys because they're in their feelings. And feelings of hate and fear are some of the strongest emotions. What's great for us, though, is love and hope, I think are even stronger emotions. How did you end up in politics? End up. I think I ran into it back. Yeah, just like, oh, it's the last resort. I mean,

in some ways, you're on your way to being Brad Pitt, weren't you? Not quite bad Pitt, but I was doing community theatre, which like I still is kind of where my heart is. And I feel like it's maybe brave to say that as a leader of a political party to go. My heart is obviously in politics too, but I really, really love the work I was doing. And when I see friends who are still doing community theatre, there's something about being in that space that brings me maybe even more alive that when I'm at my best in politics, I'm like, oh, it's the same feeling when you're in a community. I have work I was doing with something called Theatre v. Oppressed. So this started in 1970s with a guy called Augusta Bawal in South America.

He was working with the favelas, I was struggle with that word, some of the poorest communities. And what he would do is he would get actors to rehearse a scene where there was an oppressor. So, say, a landlord that was charging an unfair rent, or a police officer that was brutalising a minority community, or a politician who was being unfair to the trans community. And you would turn to the audience and you would ask them to pause the scene whenever they felt there was an injustice. And then as an actor, you turn to the person who's paused and gone, what's going? on what you unhappy about. And then they try and tell you. And then you go, oh, no, no, no, don't tell me, show me. So then you go and sit in the audience and you encourage the audience member to come on stage and to like role play challenging the oppressor and they call it rehearsing a revolution.

So I was doing this work for years, which underlying it all is to make sure that every audience member at some point has challenged injustice before they leave the theatre. I was doing this for years until like it almost felt like every end of the show ended up with, you need to find a good politician and like get them to change the law. Or you need to. to find like an ally to stand up and do something. And I was just really aware that the political system was broken and I thought I could keep shouting about that or I could keep telling stories about how broken it is or I could get involved in work to fix it. So that's what got me into it and it's been a roller coaster ever since. And your sweatshirt, Brighton table tennis club,

you were just telling us before. Yeah, there's a guy who used to be a Labour MP called Lloyd Russell Moyle who was very prominent in labour during Jeremy Corbyn's time and then was deselected from the party under Kirstama because he's a person with integrity and morals and they're like, can't have that in today's Labour party. And so he joined the Green Party and when I went to go visit him in Brighton, he said there's somewhere I want to show you. So he took me to this space and it's a space where refugees are playing table tennis, the local community are playing table tennis, children with special needs or indeed adults with special needs are playing table tennis. And basically what they're doing is people say, oh, there's no

integration. They've literally created a space where people can integrate and you go in there, it's only taking me 10 minutes of being with you to be my most like hopey-dopy, lovely, airy, fairy, but you can feel love in that room. Like it is tangible. It's like being at a gig where everyone is just connected and you go into that space and there's something different about the space. I think that's why all I said in the intro was valid is because it feels like you do represent this possibility that we don't need to be dismissed as ideological.

I feel like my whole life, the way I was raised and the community I grew up in was always dismissed as like a never, never, like an impossible dream because of economics or capitalism, whatever. When actually what is going on when you really hone in, like being in East London, I'm very proud of my community. I also lived in Leeds for four years and like you come from the north and there's a huge community up there. And it's like there's so many little groups that are really trying to break through and sort of defy the way that the world works and not kind of just accept like many people have for years upon years upon years that that's the only way and that hope doesn't exist. And it exists in all of us. And like I love the t-shirt you're wearing and also inside me there's mini cringe. And I'll tell you why. I know how it feels my mum wears my merch every time she meets up with me.

Everyone loves Paloma. It should be everyone loves Paloma. I love Zach. I'm in the single figures, but everyone loves Paloma. Now, I went to Heaven the other day and did a kind of big speech there. The atmosphere was amazing, but my whole speech was about, this is about community work. It's about all of us coming together, all playing our role. And it's not about one person or one political party, actually.

It's about everyone in this moment recognizing the agency and power. They have to change things when they turn up and show up. And there's a spectrum. Some people will turn up and show up by being very involved in a political system, by canvassing and door knocking. Some people will turn up and show up by being kind to a stranger and just like being intentional about that. And I finished the speech, it went down really well. I jumped into the crowd, which really bothered security, but it just had to be done. And then the DJ, I was very tempted, but I thought I'd never give them a picture and falling.

And then the DJ, who was lovely, so this isn't a criticism, heard that whole speech and then immediately played the song, I need a hero. And I was like, if it was like a direct opposite of the. a song to play just as I've jumped into the crowd. It would be that song. But I get it. It's because I think we've been trained to kind of look to go, who's coming to save us. Who will lead us? Exactly. And what I'm really working on at the moment. And it's obviously a tightrope because I totally accept that like I've become a leader of a party. People tell me constantly how hopeful, inspired and excited they are. And those are no small things. That's something that I really deeply feel is a huge honour and a privilege and like a tape responsibility seriously. And I know, like,

is every chance I'll fuck up or I'll stumble or I get hit by a car. I'm hoping that doesn't happen. But actually what we need to do is create the resilience of communities to go. There shouldn't be like a one person thing. There should be everyone. And I believe that's happening. So there isn't me coming on and ranting and saying it's not happening. It absolutely is happening.

But I think some people are waiting for permission or they're waiting for like what is their role if they've never seen themselves in politics before. And I guess a big thing I'm trying to make is politics inclusive and it's accessible to everyone. because the whole thing is designed to be inaccessible. Like, particularly if you're a woman or a person of colour, like there's very few examples. You know, we've got some brilliant examples like Dawn Butler and Diana, but, you know, they're few and far between.

And actually that's because the whole system's designed to tell people like that. You're not part of this. Exactly. You're not part of it. You're not welcome. It can't be like this. And so there's huge amounts of work to do to just make things more accessible. In your mad section, do you want to introduce what you think's absolutely mad? as if there weren't enough things?

Politics. Pretty much the entire world at the moment feels like it's mad. Like we're filming in early 2026 and from everything that's going on in the United States and Donald Trump and Venezuela and kind of like there was a day

where we were all talking about it and then the next day because the next mad thing happened it was a bit like we're like, okay that's the situation now, just everything's going to shit. Donald Trump's a wild and hinged dictator but we're just going to get on now

because our brains can only cope with so much matter. And then at the moment, the Epstein files. We've got, I guess I want to pivot to something like very specific about the Epstein files that some people might not know about, but I think is really important, which is the company Palantir. So Palantir are a US-owned tech company that specialize in military equipment, artificial intelligence. And even before the Epstein files, we knew that they have invested huge amounts of money in our national health service. And lots of doctors, including the British Medical Association, who have a trade union. unions for doctors, as saying that this isn't fit for purpose, it's not appropriate, they don't

know why they're embedded in all of our trusts. Now, Palantir say, you know, so I'm being fair to the billionaire tech company, they say, we'd only use your data appropriately, we'd never publish data, et cetera, et cetera, but there's no real safeguard there. And if this isn't bad enough. They don't know what appropriate is. They haven't outlined it. They are also actively involved than the genocide in Gaza in terms of having contracts with the Israeli government. So if a company could ever be like the most villainous company that if you were casting a Marvel movie, you'd go, these are the bad guys, those are the people that we've put into our National Health Service.

But I think it's all pretty mad. It is mad. And in simple terms, what are your fears about all of that information? Because that's quite a lot. But like, what could that actually mean for like you or I who use this? the NHS. Yeah, well, the biggest fears are, you know, this is already happening, but if we need to use our national health service, whether it's A&E, a regular GP practice or a specialised practice, the more and more the interests of a practitioner, and this obviously isn't me knocking the practitioners,

there's amazing people keeping our NHS running, but they start having to consider the profit motive rather than our actual healthcare. I'm also worried that we know that certain UK politicians are looking more and more to a US healthcare system where if you've got money and you've got wealth you get better treatment or you get necessary treatment, I don't ever want a situation where if you need to call an ambulance, you have to get your checkbook out, you have to worry about if you have enough money for that ambulance.

I'd say more widely, though, there's real issues around privacy. So what information do those healthcare companies hold on us? How might that affect people getting insurance in the future? How might that affect people's relationship with their family? So if there's been inherited conditions, for instance, Does that change the kind of level of healthcare you get? I think there's also a much deeper, like, surely the amount of information you should share should be on the individual about your own healthcare, it's your body, it should be your choice.

I think more widely, though, when we look on the international stage, the connection between money, power, and the military machine and the UK government and the decisions we're making, the idea that we would pay money to the tax system, and then the money that we spent, the money we've given to the tax system or to the UK government, then get spent. on horrific things happening around the world, I think we'd worry a lot of people. So I think it's about the transparency about all of this, but also making sure that our NHS stays nationalised.

If you were to become leader, this sounds like, it's systemically for years and years and years and years, this whole thing has been gravitating towards this level of corruption that you speak about in just one kind of small part of it all, How would you, if you became a leader, be able to unpick that in such a short period of time? I mean, if you got elected, you only get a small amount of time and then people are just becoming for you. You've got to be so thick-skinned. But like everyone will be looking for flaws, the opposition, who is the majority when you look at all the parties collectively?

What would you change first? And how do you prioritize the people over this kind of idea that we've been raised to believe is important of like economics being more important than the human beings? Yeah, absolutely. So I think it's simple, which is different to easy, and I'll explain why. I think there's two things you really need to do. One on a personal level, you know, I'm attacked every single day and that's fine because it's nothing compared to people who are really struggling. And I think if you dare to be vulnerable, why would anyone attack you? Or even if they do attack you, they're just being a dick, right? Because you're going, I'm not perfect. I don't know everything. I'm just a person who's doing my best with what I've got to empower other people to also do their best. And I think as long as you maintain that integrity, there's nothing anyone can actually attack you on. because you've got nothing to hide. So I think that's the first thing is, I have two vested interests, which is to protect people and protect the planet. Meanwhile, you've got politicians from other parties

who are taking literally millions of pounds from private health care, oil and gas companies, gambling companies, and the arms trade. And the Green Party, I'm really proud, is funded by regular members, so people who are literally giving fivers or tenors, sometimes a little bit more, but certainly no dirty money

from those kind of organizations that I'm talking about. And I think when you're free to not take money from vested interest, that means you can just speak the truth. And something I've really noticed is people often talk about, A, how fast I speak and B, that I don't look like a manufacturing answer. And that's because if you're telling the truth, you can speak quite fast. You never have to remember what lies you've told. Exactly that. Yeah. And that's amazing.

And sometimes I say something I think, oh, I could say that a little bit better. And so I'll go back and clarify what I mean. But I'm never thinking, oh, shit, I might reveal the truth here because I just want to reveal. the truth. And then I think the second thing is about the people you get elected is how you change it in a short system. If you've got a group of MPs or councillors or anyone in your party, and you also know that they're there for the right reasons. It's not about having a huge bar that people have to jump over. I always think about there's a brilliant woman in Southwick called Claire Shepard, who's run for a counsellor a couple of times. And she ran as an independent before she ran for

the Green Party. And I said to her, you know, why did it take you a few years to run for the Green Party? And because she said, because I'm a mum and I drive the kids to school. And I thought if I drive, I couldn't be a green like that would be hypocritical. And I'm like, no. And she totally gets it now. Like you can drive, eat meat, fly, you know, do all the things that are ungreen and still care about the planet and still care for people. You know, if you can change those things, sure. And I do because I've got the space and I don't have kids.

I don't eat meat. I don't drive. I don't fly. But that shouldn't be like the morality check to say, until you're perfect, you're perfect, yeah, and I'm not saying I'm perfect, but until you're perfect, like, green credentials, you can't get involved. That's exactly what they want us to think. They want us all to be pointing at each other and go, oh, but you drank from a plastic water bottle, or, oh, you don't know the exact figures for this, so you can't, you can't get involved in politics until you've

memorized all those numbers. I also just think as well that as, that people forget sometimes when they look at party leaders in quotation mark that good leaders have always, throughout history been people who outsource the things they're not so great at. Totally. So when you speak about, you know, when we were speaking before and you were like, oh, it's me and my party, it's so great because it shows that you don't have an ego. Therefore, change can only come about if you say, well, in my leadership, I'm going to acknowledge that maybe I'm not so great in this area, but I know someone who is and

they're on board with my party. So it's a collective responsibility. I think, you know, quite often egos have got in misconstrued in politics and then people make it all about that person. But the reality is to sort of to govern or to lead or to run any company, for one of a better word, you've got to be able to go, oh, I've employed this person or that person because I'm not so great at that. And I'm unable to do it all as well. And I think it results in better decisions And the front mound of it Like I understand absorb it all

And there's lots of people who are about to say Making sure I look good A stylist is not on my team Okay, I'll take that It was funny actually when I went to the table tennis As someone from my team went What's the number one rules like when we walk in? I'm like, I'm not going to play table tennis

When there's lots of TV cameras And then obviously they're getting there I'm the first thing a kid does Give me a table tennis I'm so uncoordinated But the kid I was playing at was so good they kept landing the ball on my table tennis racket. So actually, this is a good example of this.

They were just making me look amazing. And I saw the clip on the evening news, and I'm just casually like playing table tennis. Whereas normally, if I was doing that with someone who couldn't play it, the ball would have been dropping everywhere. Yeah, because God forbid you have to make any big decisions for the country if you can't play table tennis.

I love that. Where I think quite often we fall down in politics is that we are preaching to the converted. So I live in a community of people that pretty much agree with me and agree with you. And it gives me this sort of false sense of, this false idea that you will get in and that this will be, you know, the Green Party will and socialism will prevail against this horrible blanket bombing of vitriol that we're in the middle of. And that isn't the case, really.

when we finally look at, you know, political, when we look at the results, usually I'm quite surprised. I can't believe it that not everyone thinks like me. So I have this plumber who I really like and who's been working with me for years and every time he comes we have a huge row. He's swaying to vote reform. And we have a lot of conversations about it.

Now, I think it's my duty as like an activist campaigner or somebody who even just cares about my local community to have conversations with people who disagree with me. And I do think that the Liberal left, which I am sort of part of, has this kind of strange habit of dismissing people who don't agree with them. And I don't think that's how we're going to win.

So to give you some context, I've written it all down. So he's swaying to vote reform because he feels like we've had a two-party system forever. and it hasn't worked. So you applied to that as well. He thinks that reform will be doers and implement what the general public are feeling,

being more receptive to the problems that are in the UK at this moment. He says too many educated, bright young people are leaving this country and we don't need to lose more. It doesn't bother him if MPs are privately educated as long as people that gain the top jobs are competent. Controlled immigration is fine if it brings hardworking, young, bright, clever people to study and work, but illegal immigration is a huge problem for the billions it's costing the taxpayer. What would you say to him and what would you think of that Britain? Yeah, it's definitely

a conversation I'd want to have because actually there was very little there I disagreed with. There's different ways I'd phrase it. There's different nuance to it. And the first thing you can absolutely agree on is that the super rich have got richer than they've ever been before and the gap between the rich and the poor is wider than it's ever been before. And that's not okay. And as soon as you say that, the person is usually nodding and going, I agree with all of this totally. You can then agree on lots of things like we should be taxing for super rich more than people who are a plumber or a hairdresser or a small business owner or a medium business owner, someone just trying to get by who is being taxed more than someone who might go to sleep and make more money than some

people can earn in their lifetime just while they sleep because the amount of money they've already got in their bank account from interest, just earning more money on that capital. And straight away, you're into a conversation where you're like, there's so much we agree here. Now, where there's often disagreement, although it wasn't so much here, is on immigration. Well, he toned it down because he's trying to, you know, but what he says to me is quite more extreme than that. I thought he's scared of you, so he tones it down when he talks to you. No, he's toned it down for you. He doesn't for me. I can completely understand, particularly if you're living somewhere, like Clacton or somewhere by, you know, the beach or Dover, that you look at your neighbourhood,

and these aren't my woods, these are people who have spoken to me who go, look in my neighbourhood, it's a shithole, there's no investment here. And then you're told constantly these stories about people who are just coming over here. And then you're told lies about how they're just getting benefits or just getting luxury housing and why that breeds resentment. And so it comes back to exactly where we start off. I think we need to tell more powerful stories that are rooted information, but actually challenge these myths that are being peddled.

And the idea that reformed politicians for people who actively, you know, they pretend they're serving the 99% of people, but they literally want to protect the 1%. The idea that they've got the solutions or their doers, sure, they are doers, but they're not going to be doers for 99%. They're just going to further entrench wealth and power and make sure that they don't give a shit at all about those working class communities or your plumber. And so I think we've got to keep pushing the point that Nigel Farage wants to take our public money, our public wealth, and give it to private investment, give it to his wealthy mates, have a closer relationship with his mate, Donald Trump.

Nigel Farage was in the Epstein files, but no one seems to be talking about that. That doesn't necessarily mean he's doing anything wrong, but it certainly raises questions. And so I think we've got to point out that gap, but also more importantly than anything, we do have to give people hope. Now, I think we have the Green Party went wrong in the past, and it's going to sound like you're going to sound like a criticism of the previous leaders, but they're all friends of mine. I think they did a brilliant job with what we had at the time. I think we're in a different context right now, is if we just go to hope, it can sound a bit middle class or it can sound a bit wish. washy, someone's like,

my life's shit, everything's crap, and you're saying to me, let's just, you know, feel hope. I think you've got to connect with the anger first, and you've got to really experience

what people are experiencing right now and why they're angry and not dismiss that, meet people where they're at, connect with people like you are. I wouldn't necessarily say you have a huge row with your plumber, but, you know,

if I, we do it in love. Yeah, exactly, and that's it. But that's the key. It's for with love. What did you want to speak about that makes you sad?

Yeah. So this is the genocide in Gaza, but in fact, any genocide around the world. And the reason why I took a deep breath is you'll know as a performer that there's a phrase phoning it in, which is where you talk about something so much, you sing the same song or perform the same song, and sometimes it's a danger if you kind of go through the motions of saying, these are the facts that you talk about, these are the things you talk about. And I've been thinking about this more and more with Palestine, that like almost as a protection mechanism, every time we turn on our phones,

as more horror, more atrocity, that I think almost, well, I shouldn't talk for all of us, but to myself, you can almost disassociate because you go, I just can't have the emotional weight of what I keep seeing every day. And so I've found myself on the news just talking about it, and I talk about the fact quite regularly that on average, a classroom of children is dying in Gaza every day. But when I say that, I've rarely been feeling it recently because I've just got into the habit of saying it. And so I just gave a note to myself when I came on today that if we're talking about something sad, to not run at it a million miles an hour and actually to sit in just how just horrendous it is. And despite being the leader of a political party in the darkest moments, how powerless I feel to do something about it.

And then I immediately jumped to we're not powerless and having a platform like this and talking about it, talking to our friends about it and neighbours and strangers is really, really important. And I know that matters to the Palestinians, that we keep them in our hearts. but I think I rarely approach this conversation from a frame of sadness. Usually it's anger or it's hope when they see the resilience of people and how we're changing things. But when the brief was to think about something that's sad, it was the immediate thing that let to mind and obviously it's beyond sad. It's infuriating.

100%. What really struck me when I met you and I didn't know that you were a politician was that you introduced yourself to me as that Polanski And I found it really refreshing because I'm a Blomfield. That's my surname, which is also a Jewish surname. And I think quite often people assume that this is a, you know, an anti-Semitic. And it's dismissed. And that in itself takes away from the emotion of the subject.

When people just dismiss it as like, okay, so you're against Jewish people. And here we are two people whose heritage names. are Jewish talking about how horrific this is and what's what's the most important thing to reflect on as well is like we are not talking about anything other than literally visually visually seeing human beings many of them children being massacred and not able to live a normal life and sometimes people dismiss it as and those people are desensitized to those images And I think that it's really important to just like you said, like take a deep breath and go, really the platforms you're on and the platforms I'm on is full of people trying to nitpick your argument.

But when does it stop? Because the argument is, are you okay with this visual? Because I'm not as a human being. And you look at the history books, how we've learned about, you know, huge moments in that we are taught and openly acknowledge that they were horrendous, like slavery, like the Holocaust, like all of this. And we say, how could it happen? How could it happen? And it is happening. You're on stage at the March, I think, just after me. And I kind of, I never write speeches. I always, which is quite a wild thing as a politician, but I tend to get a microphone and look out to

the audience and think what needs to be said in this moment. And so that day I kind of looked out. And I thought, what politically does this group of people need to know about what to do next? And then you were the immediate speaker afterwards. So I went to watch and sorry if I'm paraphrasing you, but you came on and you said, you know, people have said that this might not be good for my career or, you know, it's got risk reputationally. And I just look at them and say, but there's a genocide going on. And people will tell me that it's too complicated or it's too nuanced and you'll go, but there's a genocide going on. and people will say, oh, you're not a politician, you're a pop star, you can't, and you go, but there's a genocide going on.

And it was the simplicity of exactly what you just said, not getting into the nitpicky of it. And I went straight there to a rally, I think that evening with the campaign of the nuclear disarmament. And I got up on stage and I thought, I don't know what I'm going to say for my speech. And I surprised myself because I just said, I just saw Paloma Faith speak.

And what she said is, and then I just repeated your speech that day, because I just thought it was so powerful. I don't need to find any more technical words or nuances. We just need to keep pointing out that we all know there's a genocide going on. The genocide scholars have been really clear there's a genocide going on. Is it really difficult for you to differentiate between big issues and small issues? Because when you spoke to my researcher, you spoke about, for example, the Greyhound Racing.

Or, for example, I spoke to one of your constituency and we were talking, about how important it was that our school, our state school, doesn't have a lollipot person. And a lot of kids are like going to this primary school and there was one that was actually killed because they're going on their own because they're getting, their parents are saying you've got to get ready to go to school on your own because you're about to go to secondary school. And there's this big campaign and some of them are green party members or part of your party anyway. And they were like, it's as simple as like,

you know, why should the leader of the Green Party care about a local school not having a lollipop person or Greyhound Racing when everyone looks to you and goes, but what are you going to do about these massive major issues? Like how do you as a leader sort of reconcile yourself with the big versus the smaller issues when it comes to sadness and empathy and just kindness to people? Yeah, I think it's all interconnected. Yeah. So it's kind of in the answer you gave. Like if you don't have a lollipop lady and someone tragically dies, particularly a young person, yeah, anyone dying from a road collision is horrendous.

Then that has consequences. And I think, you know, you're always in politics because you want people's lives to be better. And so I think local politics is an opportunity to do politics differently. And so whether it's for lollipop person, whether it's for, police is something, again Zoe Garbert's done loads of work on this. It's complicated because some people want to see a police presence in their area because they're worried about crime. But then you have lots of communities, particularly minority communities, who feel underprotected and over-policed and there's like real mistrust.

And so to have someone on the ground who's much more closely connected to those issues can act as like an effective facilitator or mediator between communities, I can't be hyper-local because I would burn out in seconds. And it's something I struggle with is people's personal stories. Before I was leader of a party, I felt like had much more time to sit with people and really feel that interpersonal stuff to feel people's stuff. And the truth is I just don't have time at the moment because I'm running around from media to media or rally to rally or campaign to campaign.

What I do do, though, every so often is make sure that I do carve space in my diary to go, even if it's just one person a week. I was really pleased on my podcast the other day to have a woman called Doris, who's a hotel supervisor. She was part of the first group of hotel cleaners who have struck him 40 years against a chain and won their case. But I just had to sit down with her

just to hear her own personal experience of what it was like. That same week, though, I sat down with the leader of a trade union, of the National Education Union. I think that's just an example. Like, I think it is important to speak to leaders of movements

and he was amazing, but also to speak to the workers and the people are having that personal experience. And then the very final thing, I've got to shout out, my amazing, incredible, beautiful, lovely, kind boyfriend, Richie, who works in palliative care. And if ever there's, like, a perspective checker,

I come home and I'm ranting about something that some fool from another party said to me, and he talks to me about the group of people that have died that day. And, like, that's never reminding signal that we don't have long, and we should just ultimately be kind and compassionate. I love you. I love you, too. So moving on to bad,

you've obviously endured so much badness because the moment you're in the firing line everyone comes for you but before you were in politics you got into acting now I think it's bad form that people would imagine that you wouldn't have a history and a life and you know many of these leaders we're talking about

using yours against you you know named in the X-Deme files and various other things and, you know, unproven yet, but still, like, you know, there was no sight nor sound of you. Your big crime was that you were an actor. That doesn't bother me for some reason as much as being in an Epstein files. They were saying, too, even worse than that, I was a hypnototherapist. But I'm like, their worst kind of allegation is that I was trying to help people.

I was like, okay, great. Yeah, the hypnotherapist. The plumber actually was worried that you'd said once about the breasts. Right. But, you know, he loves all that stuff. He loves to latch on to a story. I'd just say, don't believe everything you read him the sun is probably what. Yeah, but also, fair enough, if people want bigger breaths, that's up to them.

Tell me about when the far right leaked your performance. That's bad treatment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How do you deal with that? Well, it's just, I picked this because actually ends like with me feeling really happy. Then 2006, I was doing all the community theatre, and then the first. film. In fact, one of the only films I ever made was an indie film. I was living in Atlanta, Georgia. And it was like an American pie type film, like about a group of frat boys in a university

that discover that you can drink a gallon of milk in an hour without vomiting. And then the film is literally me going from university town to university town, getting people to chug milk. I wasn't vegan at the time, I have to say, chug milk and then vomit. And so like a good 20 minutes of this film are just people vomiting. The film is about as trashy as it can be. And because it was kind of pre, I guess, pre DVD, maybe, I just didn't have a copy of it, and I've not seen it in about 20 years. And then a couple of weeks ago, a right-wing blogger had found it and put it on YouTube. And obviously, the first reaction was my heart sank.

I was just like, God, everyone's going to see this film and I could see the viewing figures going up and up and up. And then the second thing, I was like, I haven't seen this film for 20 years. I sat there with my boyfriend Richard, we watched a film and it is awful. But also it's like so amazingly awful that, like, we were. quite gripped. Yeah, exactly. I think it's got the opportunity to be a completely cool film. And also, I used to have a big, I think they call it, Jufro, like big, big, curly hair. And so I've got this huge curly hair in it, living in Atlanta, Georgia at the time, or Athens, Georgia. And every time a scene came on, I just remember these amazing people that I haven't seen for years,

where I was having this, like, beautiful time, wonderful time. And I thought, they've tried to come for me with this attack. And actually, they've given me a lovely evening with my boyfriend, where I've watched this film that I've not watched for ages. And actually there's bits of it, they're quite good. It's quite sweet. Yeah, exactly. And also, it's like you're really young. I don't think I know anybody who's the same person at 40 as they were when they were 20. For sure.

So why do we live in a world where people think that you're not allowed to change? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Change is good, surely, if it's, you know, positive change. And I've just kind of got to be okay with it too, because when I was an actor, I was doing lots of promo work, which is what lots of actors do do when you stand out of the street and hand out yoghuts or try and sign people up for things

and there are definitely pictures of me out there which I've not seen for ages but like dressed as a chicken dressed as a hot dog being a cheerleader I used to get employed to stand there at the London Marathon with people's numbers and their name

and like I would scream their name when they were running past because I was plastered in logos everyone's got to make living exactly totally and I don't think any of that is like an ethical and I think it really speaks to how so many politicians

went to like Oxford or Cambridge, studied politics, came straight out, worked for a politician, then got a safe seat, then became a politician. And I'm like, how are we surprised they're making decisions that aren't based on people's real experience? Where I've had that experience of like, you've got an audition and you can't afford the bus fare. So you walk to the audition. And so us, they used to give out like free food. It was for Harry Krishna's. And I used to have to plan my audition so I could walk to the audition, then walk to the free food, eat the food, probably volunteer with them for half an hour, so I didn't feel guilty about taking my food, serve other people food, and then walk to heaven where I was working for like a few years,

work till five in the morning, yeah, flyering or doing the door, and then be up at eight for an audition again. And I'm not complaining about any of that. That was like some of the best years of my life, but it wasn't like I was training my entire life to be like, I'm going to be a politician, squeaky clean, even if they're definitely not squeaky clean, but like every single job I do is actually a line up to being prime minister in the future. And I just think, We need more people in politics, not necessarily the actors, although that's good too, but people who have just done jobs and done things. Yeah, and it was honest.

It was pure and honest, and you're not hiding anything. Finally, our last section, although I could talk to you forever. I've really enjoyed it. Me too. Is what makes you glad today? Hmm. I mean, it's corny, but it's the answer that came to mind straight away is to sit here and speak to you and to think about what an amazing privilege I have to talk about things that really,

really matter to me to an audience that will hopefully listen, hopefully everyone didn't tune out after 10 minutes, to see the Green Party growing and to feel the hope right now that no matter how depressing and grim and in turmoil the whole world and certainly our national politics can feel, that we can't give into that fear and we can't just give into that anger. We need to turn that anger to hope. And I really believe that's happening every day. I know I can't walk down the street without someone stopping and saying that they're feeling hopeful. And my response is always the same. First is to thank them, so I'm not an ungracious twat.

But second is to say, okay, what are you doing about it? Because it comes back to like, we can't be hopeful. Someone's going to say, yeah, we've all got to do that work. And then also, I guess I'm on end by saying, I'm really glad for my boyfriend to, like, wake up with him every morning. Just like a beaming ray of light that can sometimes be annoying if I'm waking up crumpy. But actually his consistent, like, positivity about the world.

like I just think we could all be a bit more richy. Thank you so much, Zach Pallanski. Thanks so much. Puppies next time, please. Yeah, puppies next time. We've got a few years for you to win. Everybody get on board. Join the Green Party.

Thank you. I love that. Thanks so much. Zach, you're an inspiration. Oh, thank you. I really really enjoyed. Thank you for the hope. Thank you for everything you're doing.

Not enough. Can you get that doors for you? Thank you very much. I adore you. Good luck with everything. Huge love. You'll be too famous for me soon. Bye.

My God, hope is here. Well, wasn't that great? All of the links of everything we mentioned in the show can be found in the episode description. Oh, and while you're there, why not subscribe and follow the show too? See you all next time. Later's potatoes.