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Zack Polanski was selected as the Green Party’s candidate for the Holborn and St Pancras by-election on Friday - and immediately launched a stinging attack on Labour.The Green leader announced his bid a week ago to be a London MP.His move came just days after Sir Keir Starmer quit as the MP for the north London constituency.Mr Polanski faced a surprise challenge from local councillor Hamza Chowdhury for the Green nomination.But the party leader won overwhelming support from Green Party members in Holborn and St Pancras to fight the contest.

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00:00I'm absolutely delighted to be selected because we can win this election in Hobart and St Pancras.
00:05I've been a London Assembly member for the last five years so I've been representing people
00:08here on the ground and what I see is the amazing work of the Camden councillors.
00:12We had one before May, we've now got 10, 11 if we include the Alliance and those are people
00:17who are doing brilliant work on the ground. So starting today, in fact it started a few days
00:21ago but including today, I'm going to be out all over the constituency with the councillors
00:26looking at the work they've been doing, amplifying it and listening to residents.
00:29I think we've got to look at the root cause of why there's so much toxicity and division
00:32in society. That's a much longer question but I think part of it is having successive governments
00:37who have refused to tell a positive story about migration, who have refused to tell a story
00:42about the need for safe and legal routes, particularly for refugees and people seeking asylum.
00:47We had Keir Starmer saying that we're an island of strangers. Andy Burnham has changed the rhetoric
00:52but what we've not yet seen is the action that we need to make sure that we're supporting
00:55both people who are looking to make a home here and people who live here too.
00:59And most of all we need to end rip-off Britain. People right now have a toxic combination
01:03of low wages and high bills and they're really, really struggling. They're seeing their towns,
01:07their villages and their cities and it feels like they're losing pride of place. We really
01:12need to deal with that to make sure that ultimately migrants and refugees are not made as scapegoats
01:17but actually we're improving the lives of everyone who lives in this country. We can do that
01:21if we make different political choices. When I became leader for the Green Party we were polling
01:24about 6 to 7 percent on average. Now we're polling 12 to 13 percent. If you told me a year
01:28ago
01:29that's the increase we were going to make I would have bitten your hand off. So I'm really pleased
01:32with where we're going. Of course I always want us to do more, I always want us to be even
01:37more
01:37popular but that's why we've got these work. You know, the next 27 days we're going to be all
01:41out on the doorsteps. That's also national polling and what we're finding on the doorsteps
01:44and hoping in St Pancras is people really care about the kind of issues I'm talking about.
01:48Housing costs, making sure that we're standing up for renters or standing up for leaseholders,
01:52making sure we're nationalising Thames water. People won't put up with Andy Burnham's kind of
01:57hand-waving around public control. What we need is full public ownership and then this is a
02:02constituency that cares even more than the average about tackling the climate crisis and the fact that
02:07this mayor, sorry that this Prime Minister, could be announcing new drilling for oil and gas in
02:12jackdaw during this election or delaying it until after the election if he doesn't refuse to rule
02:16it out. That's really outraging people and I think more and more people will see during this election
02:22that voting green is a way to send a message to this Labour government that we don't just want
02:27another Labour MP in this area that will just add to Andy Burnham's huge majority but actually it will
02:32be a green voice who will speak for the people of Hoban and St Pancras and hold the government to
02:36account
02:36in constructive ways. I mean anyone who saw those messages about artificial intelligence I think
02:41should be worried. I think that's a lot of information to take and AI is something that's
02:45been coming down the track very fast. I think we also have to not be philistine about it. We know
02:50that
02:50artificial intelligence has opportunities in our society if it's regulated properly, if it's
02:55transparent and in particular for people who own it aren't listened to by the government in terms of
02:59the tech bros but actually we're thinking about the workers, particularly I'm thinking about creative
03:03workers but whoever it might be whose livelihoods are at risk because of artificial intelligence.
03:07I'm particularly worried around the data centres. Right now we have a government that are calling
03:11data centres critical infrastructure. I think to most people critical infrastructure is water,
03:17electricity, energy. The idea that just any developer could say I want to build a data centre
03:21wherever it is, not demonstrate how they're going to get the water for it or how they're going to
03:25control the energy supply. Some of these have more carbon emissions than oil and gas companies have
03:29in an entire year. That should not be critical infrastructure and what I'm asking the government to do is slam
03:35on the
03:35breaks have basically a moratorium and say no more data centres until we've got this worked out.
03:40On artificial intelligence I think it's about following the evidence and the research
03:43research but also making sure again that it's transparent and accountable.
03:47What is that nature has been used for?
03:48Which is the very important thing that we have been doing to have the right answer for that?
03:49What a great event has shifted by at least?
03:49Well, we'll do this.
03:49What kind of ψ does that we have to do?
03:50What we have to do today?
03:50I think we have to do this for lots of people to have to do it, but we have to
03:50do it either.
03:50How many people to do this in our business?
03:51We'll do this.
03:51I'm not only about an industrial enterprise multiplex.
03:51We've been an industrial enterprise model and we'll do it for nature.
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