The hypnotist who cannot hypnotise the truth
Green Party leader Zack Polanski claimed hypnosis could enlarge breasts. Now the only thing expanding is a list of awkward questions
What you don’t see with your eyes, don’t invent with your mouth — or so the saying goes, which, incidentally, according to Google, is a Yiddish proverb.
Far be it from me to act as though I have any rabbinic authority (although I have dropped the Chief Rabbi a line just to check), but I was pleasantly surprised to discover this, as it has always been a firm favourite of mine.
I can only imagine Zack Polanski missed out on this message during his years spent at King David Jewish Primary School.
For those who don’t know, before entering politics the Green Party leader worked as a hypnotherapist. ‘A what now?’ I hear you say. I know — just imagine: while all the other bubbies at shul were regaling in tales about ‘my grandson the doctor/ lawyer/dentist’, poor Nanna Polanski was sat in the corner cradling the rose quartz and sage he had bought her the previous Sunday.
“My Zacky told me if I rub this stone three times when Mercury is in retrograde my arthritis might stop playing up.”
I’ve long held the belief that there are only two types of people drawn to politics or public life: the egotistically insane and the selfless. In today’s world, however, we see far fewer of the latter and a conveyor belt of the former.
The latest headlines provide further evidence that Zack Polanski is firmly in the first category.
In case you didn’t know — or missed it, which is entirely possible given there is rather a lot going on in the world right now that eclipses Zack Polanski and his attempts to outmanoeuvre Harley Streets finest surgeons — he once claimed that he could increase a woman’s breast size through hypnosis, later insisting he had immediately apologised for making such claims.
It turns out that was a load of fakakta (rubbish). I googled that one too, don’t let it be said that i am anything but honest.
According to a newly unearthed interview, courtesy of the BBC, nothing of the sort happened. In fact, quite the contrary.
Polanski claimed he had been misrepresented and that he never believed it was possible to make your boobs bigger with your mind, even suggesting he had been tricked into saying so. He also said he had spoken to the BBC the day after the article appeared in order to apologise.
Only BBC News says it can find no evidence of such an interview. Surprise surprise. What they have found is that six days after the article was published, he spoke to BBC Radio Humberside and stood by the theory, saying “the evidence is growing”. One could say he ‘double d downed’ on the claims.
Poor Zack. The once Liberal Democrat who, as it was revealed this week, previously said that a vote for him and his colleagues would be a vote for “more police on the beat, for Israel and for Judaism” – but who now cannot even bring himself to say his family are not racist for supporting Israel – is having a bit of a mare.
And all this while his party is expected to vote on a motion that Zionism should be “treated as any other form of racism…” and proposes a ban on members who identify as Zionists. I don’t need to consult the mediums of TikTok to tell me when and where in history we might have heard that before.
Perhaps it is Zack who is in need of some alternative therapy to see him through this next period.
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