The Green party leader, Zack Polanski, has been criticised for retweeting a post on X suggesting that the police used excessive force when they arrested the suspect in the Golders Green attack.Polanski, a profilic user of social media, reposted without comment a tweet which, referring to Mark Rowley, the Met police commissioner, contained the message message: “So essentially his officers were repeatedly and violently kicking a mentally ill man in the head when he was already incapacitated by a Taser.”Mike Tapp, a Home Office minister, responded by saying:double quotation markI’m disgusted that anyone with this view is leading any political party.The Green Party has hit a new low.A spokesperson for the Jewish Labour Movement said:double quotation markThe Jewish community is hugely grateful to the police for apprehending a knife-wielding terrorist before he stabbed more Jews.

If a terrorist won’t drop the knife used to stab two Jews, then any sensible person would expect the police to use force.It’s shocking Zack Polanski and his ‘comrades’ are soft on terrorists.On Wednesday, after the attack happened, the Green party issued a statement saying:double quotation markThis was an appalling act of antisemitic violence.Jewish people deserve safety and belonging wherever they live and we stand in solidarity with the British Jewish community.Our hearts go out to the victims and their loved ones and we pay tribute to the emergency services, including Hatzola, for their swift response.

Polanski, who is Jewish, has faced criticism during the local election campaigns for not doing more to deal with antisemitism in his party.The Greens are strongly pro-Gaza, but Labour has accused them of also accepting as members people who were expelled from Keir Starmer’s party over antisemitism.Today it was revealed that two Green candidates in Lambeth have been arrested on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred over alleged antisemitic social media posts.(See 4.01pm.

)Asked about the Golders Green retweet, a Green party source told HuffPost UK:double quotation markZack has seen the video like everyone else, and doesn’t know the full picture and knows it was a very difficult situation for the authorities, but we do need to understand more about the response.The suspect in the Golders Green double stabbing was referred to Prevent, the official counter-extremism scheme, in 2020.As Vikram Dodd reports, the Guardian understands his case was closed within six weeks by the deradicalisation scheme, which has faced previous criticism.Keir Starmer has said the government and criminal justice system must respond to the suspected terrorist attack in north-west London in “a swift, agile and visible way”, as he convened a meeting in Downing Street.The Green party leader, Zack Polanski, has been criticised for retweeting a post on X suggesting that the police used excessive force when they arrested the suspect in the Golders Green attack.

(See 4.36pm.)Labour has called on Robert Jenrick to give up almost £40,000 donated to his campaign to be Conservative leader in 2024 following allegations that the sum came from an impermissible foreign donor now convicted of fraud.For a full list of all the stories covered on the blog today, do scroll through the list of key event headlines near the top of the blog.The fact that Zack Polanski is being criticised for a post on social media (see 4.

36pm) won’t surprise the Economist.In an article about him this week, it describes him as “a politician who could be described as Britain’s first digital-native party leader”.It says:double quotation markMr Polanski has liked a post on Bluesky every day since April 1st 2025—nearly 35,000 times in total (see chart).On a typical day, Mr Polanski likes his first Bluesky post at around 8.30am.

His favourite times to scroll are between noon and 1pm, and from 6pm to 7pm.His last like of the day tends to happen at around 11.15pm.After that, presumably, it’s bedtime.The content of the posts Mr Polanski likes vary but there are some recurring themes.

Around a third of the posts include his name.They tend to be adoring.The article also says: “With so many likes to his name, perhaps it is no surprise that Mr Polanski’s thumbs are working faster than his judgment.”The SNP has criticised Keir Starmer over reports that he is planning to allow around quarter of the hereditary peers who have just been removed from the House of Lords to return by giving them life peerages.(See 2.

27pm.) The SNP issued a statement from Jenni Minto, a minister in the Scottish government, saying:double quotation markIn the middle of a cost-of-living emergency, the Labour Party is focused on saving hereditary Lords – they deserve the electoral drubbing voters will give them next week.It is a disgrace that a UK Labour government, that has failed to lift a finger to help people with their energy bills, has instead been spending its time striking a deal to save hereditary Lords.It will be very telling if Anas Sarwar fails to condemn this move – with speculation growing that he is lining up a place in the Lords for himself after being projected to lead Labour to their worst ever result in Scotland.The Green party leader, Zack Polanski, has been criticised for retweeting a post on X suggesting that the police used excessive force when they arrested the suspect in the Golders Green attack.

Polanski, a profilic user of social media, reposted without comment a tweet which, referring to Mark Rowley, the Met police commissioner, contained the message message: “So essentially his officers were repeatedly and violently kicking a mentally ill man in the head when he was already incapacitated by a Taser.”Mike Tapp, a Home Office minister, responded by saying:double quotation markI’m disgusted that anyone with this view is leading any political party.The Green Party has hit a new low.A spokesperson for the Jewish Labour Movement said:double quotation markThe Jewish community is hugely grateful to the police for apprehending a knife-wielding terrorist before he stabbed more Jews.If a terrorist won’t drop the knife used to stab two Jews, then any sensible person would expect the police to use force.

It’s shocking Zack Polanski and his ‘comrades’ are soft on terrorists.On Wednesday, after the attack happened, the Green party issued a statement saying:double quotation markThis was an appalling act of antisemitic violence.Jewish people deserve safety and belonging wherever they live and we stand in solidarity with the British Jewish community.Our hearts go out to the victims and their loved ones and we pay tribute to the emergency services, including Hatzola, for their swift response.Polanski, who is Jewish, has faced criticism during the local election campaigns for not doing more to deal with antisemitism in his party.

The Greens are strongly pro-Gaza, but Labour has accused them of also accepting as members people who were expelled from Keir Starmer’s party over antisemitism.Today it was revealed that two Green candidates in Lambeth have been arrested on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred over alleged antisemitic social media posts.(See 4.01pm.)Asked about the Golders Green retweet, a Green party source told HuffPost UK:double quotation markZack has seen the video like everyone else, and doesn’t know the full picture and knows it was a very difficult situation for the authorities, but we do need to understand more about the response.

Two Green party candidates standing in the upcoming local elections have been arrested on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred over alleged antisemitic social media posts, the Press Association reports.PA says:double quotation markSaiqa Ali, a Lambeth Green candidate for Streatham St Leonard’s ward, and Sabine Mairey, standing in Lambeth’s Clapham Town, were detained by Metropolitan police officers on Thursday, according to The Telegraph.Zack Polanski’s Green party did not deny the two women had been arrested, as it declined to comment and said it was a matter for the police.The Met said in a statement: “Police have arrested two women, aged 57 and 54, on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred online, an offence under section 19 of the Public Order Act 1986.They remain in police custody.

“The arrests follow an investigation launched after concerns were reported to police on Tuesday 21 April about antisemitic material that had been posted online.”The newspaper reported it was understood Ali, whose Instagram account is set to private, posted an image of an armed man wearing a headband of the proscribed Islamist militant group Hamas alongside the slogan “resistance is freedom”.Mairey shared the text “ramming a synagogue isn’t antisemitism, it’s revenge” on the platform, The Telegraph said.A Green party spokesperson told the Press Association: “This now a police matter.We won’t be commenting at this stage.

”Ali does not appear to be listed as a candidate for Streatham St Leonards, and Mairey does not feature as a Clapham Town candidate on the Lambeth Green party’s website candidate.Earlier this month, Ali apologised “for any offence or distress caused to anyone by my social media posts” after the Lambeth Labour group accused her of sharing antisemitic posts that “repeat harmful tropes about Jewish people”.Mark Park, chair of the Liberal Democrats’ campaign committee, was holding a briefing on the local elections today.In a post for a Lib Dem Substack blog, he said there is already evidence from the campaign that the Lib Dems are stronger at grassroots level than they have been in the past.He says:double quotation markThe percentage of vacancies contested by Lib Dem candidates is up by seven percentage points this time around compared with four years ago (the most comparable previous year in the cycle).

That includes the best local election candidate showing in London since 1986.There’s still more work to do to match and exceed other parties, but that’s significant progress.A different sign of the health of grassroots campaigning is the volume of canvassing, which so far this year is up 27% compared with four years ago.(Although four years ago there were no Scottish parliament or Welsh Senedd elections, there were all-out local government elections in both countries.)Even after the 2024 general election, there simply aren’t enough held and target parliamentary seats for that sort of volume and growth of activity to be coming simply from them.

It is a sign of broader grassroots strengthSeverin Carrell is the Guardian’s Scotland editor.John Swinney, the Scottish National party leader, has been criticised for presenting the Holyrood election as a chance to “stop Nigel Farage at the border’ – in an unusual reversal of the contested territory of border control.After repeatedly lambasting Reform UK for its desired crack down on who gets to enter Britain, Swinney has described next week’s Holyrood election as a symbolic chance for Scottish voters to ban the Reform UK leader from crossing the English border.On a visit to Stranraer in south west Scotland, where ferries to and from Northern Ireland sail, Swinney said voters had a chance to cut the cost of food and bus travel, and increase child support.He went on:double quotation markThat is the choice on the ballot paper one week from today – and by uniting behind the SNP, people in Scotland can stop Nigel Farage at the border.

The SNP is the only party strong enough to beat Reform here in the south of Scotland and right across the country – and we will never do a grubby deal with Nigel Farage and Lord Offord.Malcolm Offord, Reform’s Scottish leader, originally from Greenock on the Clyde, questioned Swinney’s choice of language.A substantial proportion of Reform’s Scottish candidates are Scottish; up to 20% of Scottish voters back the party.He said:double quotation markGlad that some of the media are now calling out his language because it works both ways.I don’t think that is in any way temperate language.

The reality is that Reform UK is a good thing for Scotland.Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, said he wanted Reform to get “humped” by the electorate on 7 May but said Swinney was using the rightwing party’s threat as a distraction from defending the SNP’s record in government.Speaking in Edinburgh, he said:double quotation markYou can ask the SNP about their own press releases and their own comments.I think clearly they don’t want to talk about their record, they don’t want to talk about what they’ve have got wrong in the last 20 years.They want to make this election about anyone else or anything else.

I’m going to focus on making this election about the great people of Scotland.Eluned Morgan, the Labour Welsh first minister, accidentally told members to “vote Plaid Cymru” in an election campaign gaffe, the Press Association reports.PA says:double quotation markMorgan, the leader of Welsh Labour, misspoke while addressing a crowd of supporters at a week-to-go campaign event in Barry Island.Ending her speech, Morgan said: “One week to go, let’s open that new chapter for Wales, let’s have fairness you can feel, let’s vote Welsh Labour in the election next week.”“Pleidleisiwch Plaid Cymru,” she added in Welsh, before quickly correcting herself to say “Plaid Lafur [Labour Party]”.

The error was met with laughter from her audience, who clapped and cheered at the end of her speech.Speaking to ITV Wales, Morgan said: “We’re all a little bit exhausted, once you switch into Welsh the word ‘Cymru’ comes off your lips.“Obviously I’m very, very keen for people to vote Welsh Labour in this election.“You know where you stand, waiting lists are coming down, nine months in succession.“The plan is working – don’t put it at risk.

”Yesterday, when parliament prorogued, it marked the final time that people would be sitting in the House of Lords just by virtue of having a hereditary peerage.There were 92 places left in the Lords for hereditary peers after most of them were removed in 1999 when Tony Blair was PM.But some of those forced out yesterday will be coming back, Aubrey Allegretti reports for the Times.He says:double quotation markKeir Starmer set to announce dozens of peerages before the King’s Speech - in a deal to give a quarter of heredities back their spots in the Lords.15 Tories who lost their hereditary status on Wednesday will return as lifers, along with two Labour peers and around 9 cross-benchers.

They’ve had to go through due diligence checks with HOLAC [House of Lords appointments commission]- and may have to take up new titles.Some hereditary peers have already had an upgrade (or downgrade, depending on how you look at it) to additional life peerage status, allowing them to stay.Three of them were given life peerages in an honours list in December.Suella Braverman, Reform UK’s education spokesperson, was giving interviews this morning (see 11.57am) because she has a policy to announce.

As she explains in this video, she says Reform UK would stop foreign students who are resident in the UK accessing student loans.In recent years universities have become increasingly dependent on foreign students.They can charge them much higher fees, and the income from foreign students helps to fund the teaching for students from Britain, whose fees are capped.The Reform UK policy would not affect these foreign students – because they cannot access the UK student loan system anyway.Instead, the policy would apply to resident foreign students – including EU nationals with settled status (permission to live in the UK granted as part of the Brexit settlement, because they were here before) and foreigners with indefinite leave to remain in the UK