{"id":593356,"date":"2026-04-09T21:47:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T21:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/593356\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T21:47:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T21:47:09","slug":"zack-polanski-issued-warning-over-state-pension-triple-lock-politics-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/593356\/","title":{"rendered":"Zack Polanski issued warning over state pension triple lock | Politics | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Green Party<\/a> leader Zack Polanski has been warned that he is “playing with fire” by refusing to back the triple lock on pensions. Support for the Left-wing party has surged in recent weeks, but campaigners are concerned it has not followed Reform UK\u2019s lead<\/a> and pledged to keep the measure that ensures the state pension matches inflation and wages and rises by at least 2.5% a year.<\/p>\n

Mr Polanski stopped short of promising to keep the triple lock<\/a>, key to preventing pensioner poverty, when asked by the Daily Express at the launch of the Green Party\u2019s local election campaign on Thursday. Dennis Reed, of campaign group Silver Voices, warned the party is \u201cplaying with fire if it fails to come off the fence before the May elections\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said it would be \u201cunconscionable\u201d to weaken this safeguard in the \u201ccurrent cost-of-living<\/a> crisis\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cOlder voters are fed up with being patronised by politicians and having our votes taken for granted, and if any party, including the Greens, thinks it can ignore our concerns, it will pay an electoral price,\u201d warned Mr Reed.<\/p>\n

Mr Polanski said the Greens\u2019 policy on the triple lock will be set out in its next manifesto.<\/p>\n

He strongly rejected the idea that the interests of older and younger people should be pitted against each other, describing this as a \u201cclassic divide-and-rule tactic\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the real divide here is between the 99%, which includes younger people, older people and everyone in between, and the 1%,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Last week, Reform UK announced plans to keep the triple lock, with Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick saying he had found savings that would be \u201cmore than sufficient to cover the increase in public spending\u201d that keeping the pension provision entails.<\/p>\n

The Daily Express has a long-running crusade to protect the triple lock. The Green Party’s 2024 manifesto promised to \u201censure that pensions are always uprated in line with inflation and keep pace with wage rises across the economy\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Polanski used the campaign event to make a bid for the support of Remain voters, describing Brexit<\/a> as \u201cone of the most catastrophic decisions this country has ever made\u201d.<\/p>\n

The eco-socialist party has enjoyed a poll bounce since Mr Polanski became leader last year and has even overtaken Labour in some surveys.<\/p>\n

The latest YouGov poll put the Greens level with Sir Keir Starmer<\/a>‘s party on 16%, while the Tories<\/a> were second on 19% and Reform ahead on 24%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Green Party leader Zack Polanski has been warned that he is “playing with fire” by refusing to back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[45,49,48,133,120239,225591,131,132,225592,1958,25722,208179],"class_list":{"0":"post-593356","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-finance","12":"tag-green-party","13":"tag-green-party-triple-lock","14":"tag-personal-finance","15":"tag-personalfinance","16":"tag-reform-uk-triple-lock","17":"tag-state-pension","18":"tag-triple-lock","19":"tag-zack-polanski"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}