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

By Political, ThinkingNo Comments
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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Friday 31 October 2025

The Brit Digital ID Card – Creating A Dystopian UK

By Political, Rants, Technology, The Web, ThinkingNo Comments

According to the mainstream media, the Brit Digital ID Card is coming. See today’s articles in: The Guardian & The BBC. The talk is that they are going to be compulsory for anyone who wants to work, meaning the majority of the working age population.

The UK Government (or those really in power) have wanted an ID card system since the days when Tony Blair was Prime Minister. The only difference between now and then is the addition on the the word ‘Digital’ which represents how much more connected and capable technology now is. Connected via the Internet.

Capable in terms of being able to automatically monitor the activity of a population and flag anything suspicious or that doesn’t attune to the desires of those who have power in the UK.

The UK population didn’t want a ID Card when it was first suggested decades ago and we certainly don’t want a Digital ID Card now.

I recently blogged about The Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, detailing my concerns and ways it could go horribly wrong. But it passed through into law without seemingly any objection. Looking back now, I think The Data (Use and Access Act) 2025 was a fundamental change to the law to allow for the introduction of Brit Digital ID Cards and for the data that they hold to be expanded on and used more over time.

In the UK it seems we are well on our way to creating a Dystopian society. And I don’t like it. Not at all.

A dystopian society is one that is deeply unjust, where the general population are controlled and manipulated by those in power (usually through abuse of power). Hallmarks of a dystopian society include: constant surveillance and monitoring of the general population, a complete loss of freedom of opinions and choices for individuals and dehumanising/alienation of those that speak up against corruption and abuse of power.

Now this sounds like a story of fiction doesn’t it? But just imagine the UK adopted just half of these dystopian society characteristics in the future. Imagine being monitored by AI, 24/7. Not just were you go and what you do but everything: What you buy, who you spend time with the content of intimate and private conversations.

Just imagine not being able to stand up and call out injustice and unfair treatment out of fear of loosing everything: your home, access to your money (including food, fuel, heat, etc.), your job, communication/contact with loved ones and even things like health and education services.

There really are no limits as to what could happen if a UK Digital Brit Card is introduced.

If we look at the past, we know that those who get power (whether that be financial, political, militaristic, legal, etc.) tend to abuse it. This will be no different. It will be too tempting to use the Brit Digital ID Card to enforce compliance and control the narrative.

It’s fundamentally about trust. Do the UK population trust those in power to be fair and just in using this system? How could we possibly trust those in power, when everyday there are more reports of abusive of the power that they already have. Think about tax avoidance. Think about big companies that have raided their employees pension pots. Think about the number of corruption cases we see everyday.

Both the UK’s past and current circumstances (such as The Cost of Living Crisis) have been driven by the greed of those in power. Always wanting more: More money. More power. More influence. It’s like a never-ending hunger. Like an unquenchable thirst.

We’ve all played the board game Monopoly and know how it ends: The rich becoming super rich and owning everything, whilst the middle-class and poor own nothing. Greater financial inequality. More poverty. More misery middle-class, working-class and poor. Part of this isn’t just a UK problem, but a global one.

But our UK Politician’s can make Britain a better place. They could tackle tax avoidance by the super rich, break up monopolies, make the public sector strong, make society feel fairer and more just.

But they don’t. Instead they continue to offer manifestos that they throw out the window the minute they get into power. They are dishonest with the public and often outright lie. They don’t listen to the people they are supposed to represent. They don’t listen to the experts who try and advise them on ill-informed policy decisions. They don’t seem to have any bit of integrity or good values.

Of course not all Politicians are bad. Some have good intentions, but these intentions are drowned by a bureaucratic system that is run by the super rich for the super rich.

But I’m not without hope. I’ve recently joined Your Party, a UK political party set up by Jeremy Corbyn and others who want to change society for the better. Whilst their members are still in discussions around policies and the direction of the party, I hope will all of my heart that this will be a place where I can claim I am politically home.

Take Care,

Antony

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Thursday 25 September 2025

7 Reasons Why the World is a Scary Place Right Now

By Political, Thinking2 Comments

The world is a scary place right now. I can honestly say that I’ve never lived through a time where humanity faces such huge challenges.

Here are 7 reasons why the world is such a frightening place at this moment:

Increasing Inequality & The Cost of Living Crisis
I’ve written before about the ever increasing gap between the richest and the poorest in society (see Inequality: Making Society as a Whole Poorer). Any capitalist society seems to be destined to end up were the rich get everything – all the money, resources, property, all the assets.

To add to increasing inequality, The Cost of Living Crisis has also come along and shows no signs of ever leaving. These are both driven by that human quality: Greed. It seems for some people, enough is never enough.

Increased Control By The Powerful
It’s happening everywhere. The powerful, who rather uncoincidentally are also the extremely wealthy, are using technology to gain more control over others. This includes big multinational companies, Governments and other institutions/organisations. It feels like basic freedoms are being eroded and I think that once they’re gone, we’ll never get them back. These controls are also likely to be abused or misused by the powerful.

Depleted Resources
The world is running out of resources. Things like food, water, housing and fuel are becoming depleted. There’s absolutely no way that these resources will stretch to provide for the whole ever-growing global population.

This means that in the near future (perhaps a few years from now) there will be less available resources and many more people requiring them. If we look back at human history, in times like these conflicts arise between peoples and a lot of death follows as people fight for scarce resources.

Global Warming
Global Warming could add to humanity’s problems, by raising sea levels and putting more land under water. This would impact coastal nations initially, but eventually impact everyone. More land would be under the sea, depleting land mass and the resources we get from the land.

AI
AI (Artificial Intelligence) will continue to develop until it potentially becomes sentient, smarter and more efficient than any human. This will fundamentally change life for all. There could be some benefits, but there most certainly will be drawbacks.

In economic terms, why pay a person for their work when AI can do it quicker and better than a human? What will humans do to earn money in a capitalist society when AI-powered robots replace them?

Mass Immigration
Mass immigration could occur for a number of different reasons in the near future. Whilst not all immigration is bad, mass immigration – the movement of millions or hundreds of millions of people in a short space of time (say just a few years) would be a massive challenge for wherever they migrated to.

Aggression
We have already witnessed Russian aggression towards Ukraine. Aggression could happen in pockets arounds the world, or there could be a global conflict. The causes of such aggression and conflict could be one of the issues above or something else entirely. But aggression leads to war, death and humans exploiting other humans. It is never good.

We also carry the risk of destroying ourselves and parts of the planet through use of nuclear weapons. However, most experts think that this is unlikely to happen, as if you nuke a place it makes it unlivable and contaminates available resources.

Rather worryingly, all of these issues are global and affect everyone. They’re also complex, meaning that there aren’t any easy answers to these challenges. If we want to survive and thrive as a species, humanity must learn to overcome its differences and work together. We will need our brightest minds to work on and solve these problems. As the problems are global, so must the solutions be, with worldwide buy in by everyone.

When I were younger, I would have ended this blog post on a positive note, by writing about hope. But at thirty-nine years old the challenges seem insurmountable. Especially for a species that is divided in so many different ways.

Write soon,

Antony

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Friday 22 August 2025

The Data (Use and Access) Act 2025

By Political, Technology, ThinkingNo Comments

The Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 is a new piece of legislation recently past through the UK parliament that I’m really concerned about.

It’s been sold to the public with the promises that it will:

  • Make grocery bills cheaper.
  • Lead to cheaper energy prices.
  • Reduce time spent in traffic.
  • Give NHS Staff more time with patients (by cutting bureaucracy).
  • Put £10 billion into the economy (over 10 years).
  • Provide every person with a digital identity (verified by your biometric data), which some have dubbed the digital ‘Brit’ ID Card.

Sounds too good to be true? You’re not alone in thinking this.

The Act is a long document and I’ve not had the time to read it all. But from what I have read, I’m concerned about:

  1. Removal Of My Right to Withhold My Consent To Sharing Data And Provides No Facility For Opting Out (Fully Or In Part). This was a vital part of previous legislation around data.
  2. My Privacy – This legislation allows sharing of medical records, meaning that everyone in the NHS (and potentially other public and private organisations) will be able to see everything about my past and present health. Surely I should be able to decide who can see what about me, but this new law allows complete data sharing through a process called automated decision making. In addition, it allows sharing without making the individual aware of what exactly is being shared and why. It feels like a data free for all.
  3. How Safe & Secure My Data Will Be – More data online and more data transferred/shared increases the risk of it falling into the wrong hands. Either by accident or through a deliberate attempt to access/steal data through hackers or advanced AI. What I’ve read about this legislation does little to reassure me about the safety and security of my data.
  4. Potential For Data To Be Misused/Abused – There is a great potential for this data to be misused/abused by those with power and unlimited access.
  5. No Say When It Comes To Deleting Data – The legislation doesn’t seem to have a mechanism for deleting data. There may be several reasons to delete data, for example if it is out of date or inaccurate.
  6. The Government Having More Control On What Data Can Be Accessed – The legislation lets Government and officials/organisations have more control on what data can be accessed about an individual and under what circumstances. This feels fundamentally flawed, as those in power/control of the data could again misuse/abuse the data.

Blog soon,

Antony

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Saturday 9 August 2025
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