Ms HammondPolanski would make a very poor PM and, though it's nothing to do with me, a rather silly Party Leader.The Spectator reports - 'Amid the melee surrounding the Prime Minister, it could easily go unnoticed that the Green Party leader lived on a houseboat for three years without paying council tax to the local authority, Waltham Forest. That would be unfortunate, because it tells us rather a lot about the character of a man who could well hold the balance of power after the next election.The behaviour of Zack Polanski, Angela Rayner and others also exposes a weakness in their thinkingWhen challenged on why he had not paid council tax on his houseboat at the Lee Valley Marina, where he lived with his partner, Polanski at first claimed that he didn’t need to pay because it wasn’t his main home; he claimed to be paying council tax through the rent he was paying on another property. The boat was just a place where he stayed occasionally. This was enough on its own to raise eyebrows because the Greens have an aggressive policy to tax second homes out of existence. The Scottish Greens have proposed an escalating council tax which would increase for every additional property owned. It seems to be fine, however, for the Green party leader to have a second home without paying a penny in council tax.But then that story fell apart, partly because Polanski and his partner had boasted about their ‘amazing’ floating home; and partly because it was reported that Polanski was registered to vote at a building near the marina where his houseboat was docked. The old radicals’ cry ‘no taxation without representation’ seems to have been turned on its head in Polanski’s case. Polanski appears to think he has the right to representation without taxation.Polanski is yet one more example of what might be called Rayner’s Law: that those who are keenest on taxing others are the least keen on paying tax themselves. If you think you are personally immune from paying tax, then you have nothing to lose by calling for ever higher taxes on others'.Shysters both.
John Hawkes ● 2d