October 2025

Zack Polanski, The New Leader of The Green Party Is Someone I Would Like Add To My Influential Gay Men Article

Reading Time: 4 minutes
Image From & Copyright © The Green Party UK.

In Early 2025, I released an article titled Influential UK Gay Men, which you can download for free as a PDF document here.

In the article, I listed all the UK gay men that I thought were influential, by profession, including Politicians.

I spent many hours researching and writing my Influential UK Gay Men article. I was really happy with it.

I concluded the article by writing that I didn’t think we’d get a Prime Minister that identifies as a gay man in my lifetime.

Well, my conclusion might have been wrong.

Indeed, I am starting hope that I was completely wrong about that.

Back in March 2025, when I researched, wrote and published my Influential UK Gay Men article, I had never heard of  Zack Polanski, who is the new leader of The Green Party UK and happens to be a gay man.

Zack has seemingly appeared from nowhere to become the leader of the party and is already making a massive impact on the political world here in the UK.

Zack has expanded The Green Party UK‘s agenda to include the things that ordinary people are worried about such as the ongoing cost of living crisis, the dire state of our public services (schools, NHS, social care, local authorities, Police, etc.), the problems with our sold-off utilities (with Zack advocating for bringing them back into public ownership) and uncontrolled immigration.

What really appeals to me about Zack, from the information I read and the interviews I’ve seen, is that unlike most other politicians, he actually answers questions asked. In a straight-forward manner, displaying honesty, integrity and with an opinion backed by data.

Zack’s approach to talking politics and leaning into his values is something very rarely seen in UK politics today. I think it’s both an amazing and fresh approach that is desperately needed in UK politics. Using this approach Zack comes across as being his authentic self. Zack displays great confidence and charisma in the interviews I’ve seen and is never flummoxed by any question asked. He never fluffs an answer or avoids answering the question. Zack doesn’t use interviews as an opportunity to parrot a pre-prepared speech.

My Influential UK Gay Men Article
I have a rule about my creative works: Once they are done, they are done. I never go back and edit or change them once they’re released/published. I feel that if I started editing my work, it would be a never ending task. That I’d never have the time to create new work. It would become a quest for perfection. All creative people will know that perfection is impossible and unachievable.

But if I were writing my Influential UK Gay Men article now, Zack Polanski would definitely be included among the influential gay men. I’d also remove my conclusion that there will never be a Prime Minister (PM) that identifies as gay in my lifetime. As from what I’ve seen so far, I really think Zack Polanski could become our next PM.

But who exactly is Zack Polanski and what’s his story?
I decided to do a little research and this is what I found:

Zack Polanski, was born in Salford (North West England) in 1982 (making him 42 years old at the time of writing this article). His name at birth was David Paulden. His parents are Jewish and actually chose to change their family’s surname. They did this to avoid being identified as Jewish and potentially discriminated against. Zack’s parents divorced when he was a young child.

Zack’s education years were generally unremarkable, he attended both private and public schools at different points in his life.

At 18 years old, Zack changed his name. It is reported that he felt that he didn’t want to hide his Jewish roots and wanted to find a sense of pride in this part of his identity.

In Zack’s working life, he has previously been involved with theatre and the arts. Zack has previously also worked as a Hypnotherapist, which caused him some controversy when The Sun sent an undercover reporter for a session with him.

In Zack’s political life, he started off associated with The Liberal Democrats, before becoming involved in The Green Party. In The Green Party he has held a number of different roles, but most recently and most notably he was the Deputy Leader of the party in the years 2022-2025. This leadership role no doubt gave him the experience and skills that he is now using to lead the party.

Zack is an openly out gay man, who is in a relationship with a man. He currently resides in London, UK.

What to Know More? Check out these links.
His website: www.zackpolanski.com
The Green Party UK – Our People: www.greenparty.org.uk/about/people/

Hope
In a world that is ever increasingly on the right side of the political spectrum, it is great to see a political party that is proudly left wing. That has values and wants to make every person’s life better, not just the ultra wealthy.

This can be evidenced in The Green Party UK‘s desire to implement a 1% wealth tax on the ultra wealthy. I personally think a 1% wealth tax, for ultra wealthy people, is far too low and should start at 5% at the minimum.

What are you thoughts on Zack Polanski and The Green Party? Feel free to let me know by getting in touch or leaving a comment on this post.

Write soon,

Antony

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The Dangers of Emotional Support from an AI (Artificial Intelligence) App

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I’ve recently seen an advert on social media for an AI that provides emotional support on demand 24/7. It appeared to target vulnerable people, which I find highly unethical.

Here are some of the dangers of these sort of services:

No Empathy
Machines can’t empathise with you. They may read like they can, from how the structure their responses, but it is false.

Empathy is defined as:

the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

This leads to a perceived connection, which eventually you will realise is a false connection. You will be left feeling hurt and deeply disappointed.

False Connection
In the early stages of this false connection, you will likely disconnect from real people. This is deeply emotionally and mentally unhealthy.

Emotional Dependence
Emotional dependence and the decreased emotional resilience that follows will not be good for you if you use one of these apps. Having an app that is available 24/7 that claims to be emotionally available to you, appears to be so, will lead to you becoming emotionally dependent on it. Being emotionally dependant on any person or thing isn’t healthy.

Bad Advice
AI has been known to give incorrect information and bad advice. At worst, this advice could be extremely harmful.

Can Reinforce negative thoughts, feelings or behaviours
AI apps will repeat back to you what you’ve just said. This is to check understanding, but in these emotional support apps is also to validate what you’ve typed. This repetition can reinforce negative thoughts, feelings or behaviours.

This is especially important as part of the role of a good therapist is to challenge negative thoughts, feelings or behaviours.

No Safeguarding
Should you go into crisis and become suicidal, the app won’t take actions to keep you safe.

A role of any therapist is to safeguard you and others from harm.

Lack of Emotional Growth
AI won’t be able to help you grow emotionally. But a therapist may make suggestions that help people to grow emotionally.

Data Privacy Breeches
Your data maybe hacked or not kept safe and secure.

Blog soon,

Antony

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Support

I recognise that people visiting this page/post might want to know where they can get support.
If you require support around your mental health, addiction or physical health, see this Support page here.

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