Category Archives: Holborn and St Pancras byelection

Leader of Jewish Greens calls for Zack Polanski to resign after byelection loss

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Vivien Lichtenstein urges party leader to quit over ‘Zionism is racism’ policy – but could face no-confidence motion herself

The leader of the Jewish Greens has called for Zack Polanski to step down as pressure increases on the Green leader to acknowledge anger within the party over a new policy that equates Zionism with racism and calls for the state of Israel to be abolished.

The comments by Vivien Lichtenstein come after Caroline Lucas, the Greens’ former leader and first MP, criticised Polanski for a lack of leadership in missing the debate and vote at the weekend that resulted in the policy being passed.

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Polls close in Holborn and St Pancras byelection as Labour hopes to retain seat

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Contest seen as test of Andy Burnham’s ability to unite Labour voters amid threat from Green party’s Zack Polanski

Polls have closed in the Holborn and St Pancras byelection, a contest seen as a test of Andy Burnham’s ability to unite Labour’s voters or whether Zack Polanski can peel off support from the party’s progressive flank.

Labour is seeking to retain Keir Starmer’s former north London seat, where he won a majority of more than 11,000 votes in the 2024 general election, in what has become a measure of the political landscape under Burnham, months into his premiership.

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Loss of green space could be issue that decides Holborn and St Pancras byelection

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Labour could pay price for disappearance of parks and playgrounds around Euston station

When HS2 construction began around London’s Euston station in 2017 and people living nearby watched parks and playgrounds give way to diggers and rubble, they were promised that the lost green space would be replaced. “They have to give it all back,” said Dorothea Hackman. “But they are destroying it – so there’s nothing to give back.”

As the dust from the political party conference season begins to settle, disappearing green spaces and housing developments have become central issues in the Holborn and St Pancras byelection. On Thursday, Labour and the Green party will contest the seismic seat vacated by the former prime minster Keir Starmer.

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Tory plan to cut energy efficiency rule for builders will cost new home owners £1,000 a year, says thinktank – as it happened

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A researcher at a climate change think tank says the Conservative policy would be a ‘disaster for first time buyers’

Yesterday, as a gimmick, the Tories were handing out “Bottler Burnham” bottles of water (“0% strength”) to make a point about Burnham supposedly cancelling plans for an early election under pressure from the Tories. It is a version of a stunt they pulled in 2008 when they gave journalists bottles of a “Bottler Brown” beer. (Gordon Brown did pull plans for an early election at the last minute; this time the jibe is unfair, because there were no Burnham plans for an early election.)

The new bottles feature the image of Burnham produced by the Manchester artist Stan Chow.

The SNP’s effective ban on new nuclear energy in Scotland flies in the face of common-sense.

No part of Great Britain should be missing out on plans for new nuclear renewal.

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Polanski request to postpone Greens’ conference to focus on byelection refused by party

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Exclusive: Leader understood to have wanted to concentrate on Holborn and St Pancras campaign in London but executive committee voted against plan

Zack Polanski requested that the Greens’ ruling executive committee postpone the party’s imminent annual conference so they could focus on the Holborn and St Pancras byelection but was refused.

While party officials say the formal request came from staffers worried about diluting resources by staging a conference a week before Polanski tries to win Keir Starmer’s former Commons seat, the Guardian understands the party leader wanted this to happen.

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People ‘incensed’ about North Sea plans can vote Green in byelection, says Zack Polanski

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Party leader, who will contest Starmer’s former seat of Holborn and St Pancras, says gas drilling has come up on doorstep

Zack Polanski has said a vote for him in the upcoming Holborn and St Pancras byelection is a vote against the government’s reported plans to greenlight a North Sea gasfield.

The leader of the Green party in England and Wales, who was selected on Friday to contest the London seat, also said he was considering building a stockpile for the extreme weather predicted with the arrival of the biggest El Niño in 1,000 years, a meteorological phenomenon that supercharges floods and droughts.

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