Starmer says Polanski ‘is not fit to lead a political party’ after Golders Green police criticism

Keir Starmer has condemned Zack Polanski as “disgraceful” and unfit to head a political party after the Greens’ leader shared a social media post critical of the way police tackled the suspect in the Golders Green stabbings. The prime minister said any criticism of the police involved in the arrest was unfair on officers having to make split-second decisions in a moment of potentially grave danger. Police were filmed detaining the suspect after two Jewish people were stabbed in the north-west London suburb on Wednesday. Footage of the arrest shared on social media shows two officers appearing to kick the man on or near his head. Polanski retweeted, without comment, a post on X alleging that officers were “repeatedly and violently kicking a mentally ill man in the head” when he was already incapacitated by a stun gun. Speaking to BBC Radio 4, Starmer said that, having seen the footage, police might have believed an explosive device was in the rucksack carried by the suspect. “I don’t know what was going through the mind of those officers, but if I was there, I’d be thinking: ‘He’s going to detonate something. He’s going to blow me up and everybody around here.’ And in those circumstances, I think you can quite see why what could have gone through their mind is: ‘We need to do whatever we can to disable this guy,’” Starmer said. He added: “You have to make a decision in that split moment according to the situation as you understand it to be. …