Rory Stewart Freaks Out Over Zack Polanski

Quick Overview

Rory Stewart expressed extreme horror over Green Party leader Zack Polanski's lack of basic economic knowledge during an appearance on "The Rest is Politics" podcast, specifically citing Polanski's inability to state the annual cost of UK debt interest or differentiate between the debt and the deficit, while the show's hosts countered by criticizing Stewart's own record in the economically illiterate Cameron government.

Key Points: Zack Polanski failed to state the rough figure for how much Britain spends annually on debt interest, eventually agreeing with the host's figure of "a hundred billion pounds annually on debt interest." Polanski confused the national debt with the deficit, leading Rory Stewart to state that underestimating the debt by thinking it was 70 billion pounds (the deficit figure) was underestimating the scale of the debt about 15-fold. Polanski did not know the top rate of tax, stating it was 40% instead of the correct 45%, which Stewart found unacceptable for someone proposing to reshape the economy. Stewart was "horrified beyond belief" by Polanski's economic performance, noting that the Green Party leader polls highly and could potentially be in a coalition government. The hosts countered Stewart by labeling the Cameron government, in which Stewart served, as "the most catastrophically economically illiterate government in maybe 60 or 70 years" and called Osborneomics an "intergenerational economic vandalism" for refusing to borrow when interest rates were zero. Polanski defended his intellectual influences by naming Grace Blakeley, Richard Murphy, Gary Stevenson, and others, arguing that serious economists like Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz also advocate for wealth taxes.

Context: The discussion centers on Green Party leader Zack Polanski's recent appearance on the "The Rest is Politics" podcast, hosted by Alistair Campbell and featuring Rory Stewart, where his economic knowledge was severely tested. The context involves the Green Party's recent surge in membership (over 175,000) and fundraising success, making Polanski's grasp of core economic concepts a significant issue given his potential influence in future UK politics.