The Green candidate for an upcoming by-election has tried to defend Zack Polanski’s claim that he could enlarge women’s breasts via hypnotherapy.
The party leader has long been mocked for telling women to ‘visualise yourself with a bigger bust as often as possible’ when he worked at a Harley Street clinic.
Now even the Greens’ candidate for next week’s pivotal vote in Gorton & Denton has criticised Mr Polanski’s past ‘misogynistic behaviour’, which was detailed in a 2013 interview.
But in social media comments made just last year, Hannah Spencer also backed his later apology for the ‘mistake’.
She welcomed Mr Polanski’s announcement that he would run to become party leader in May last year, writing on X: ‘My heart could burst. Just what we’ve always needed.’
When told by a party activist that ‘Zack comes with baggage that will further humiliate’ them, she replied: ‘Find me a human who doesn’t have baggage. I’d rather someone who’s shaped by their mistakes and become a more decent person.’
She went on to say: ‘Most people in the world engage in misogynistic behaviour. But sadly few people reflect and apologise, or go on to dedicate their life to a fairer future.’
Ms Spencer was then told that Mr Polanski had ‘conned someone’ and it ‘doesn’t matter’ if he had apologised, as he has done repeatedly in the years since.
Green Party candidate for Gorton and Denton Hannah Spencer alongside leader Zack Polanski
Ms Spencer tried to defend Zack Polanski’s claim that he could enlarge women’s breasts via hypnotherapy
She responded: ‘I’m glad this conversation brings light more generally to the standards women are held to physically.
‘This didn’t start or end with Zack – maybe now more men can highlight and speak out against this, because it always seems to fall on women to speak out on the damage it does.’
And told again that he had not only ‘pandered to those standards’ but also charged £220 for it – the going rate for his 90-minute sessions when he was a hypnotherapist – she wrote: ‘I really look forward to your timeline becoming a space where you constantly raise and fight the unrealistic (and expensive) beauty and physical standards that us women and girls are expected to live up to. Better late than never, eh.’
The looming by-election in the North West, sparked by former minister Andrew Gwynne being forced to resign over offensive comments in a WhatsApp group, has descended into a three-way fight between Labour, the Greens and Reform UK.
As allegations of dirty tricks fly, Mr Polanski’s party has been accused of falsely claiming an academic endorsed its campaign in leaflets as well as using a misleading bar chart on social media.
A Labour source on Sunday night said: ‘It shouldn’t be hard to call out this ridiculous behaviour from Zack Polanski. Yet Hannah Spencer seems happy to defend the indefensible.
‘Now Polanski’s pulling his hypnosis scam on the voters by using bogus data and fake endorsements to claim the Greens can win in Gorton & Denton. They can’t.
‘Only Labour can defeat Reform’s Tommy Robinson-endorsed candidate.
‘A vote for the Greens just risks letting him in through the back door.’
