Cristo Foufas: Is it too much to ask our hypocritical politicians to practise what they preach?

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GB News star Cristo Foufas writes about hypocrisy in politics, from landlords to misogyny

We’ve reached a new low in gaslighting and hypocrisy from our elected leaders this week, with both Green and Labour leaders caught out being hypocrites of the highest order and not adhering to what must be the most basic of rules of public life: practice what you preach.

Let’s start with the Greens. For months now, we’ve had to listen to party leader Zack Polanski and the rest of the Green Party endlessly telling us about how evil landlords are.

So much so, in fact, it’s become official Green Party policy to ban being a landlord.

In October last year, they passed a motion at their conference to "seek the effective abolition of private landlordism" by banning buy-to-let mortgages and putting so much regulation and taxes on private rentals that private landlords simply sell up and leave the market.

The sane among us may wonder where the 19% of households who currently live in private rented accommodation would actually go once their landlord sells up, but the Greens say they have this covered, as they’d simply buy up those houses being sold at discounted prices. Where they’d get the money to do this, how much it would actually cost, and whether or not the exodus of landlords would completely crash the entire property market aren’t details the Greens appear to be across, which is of no surprise to anyone.

What is perhaps surprising is discovering which senior members of the Green Party would themselves be affected by this policy, as it’s now been revealed that Green Party deputy leader Mothin Ali is himself a landlord.

It’s too delicious for words, isn’t it? Yes, the party which wishes to ban landlords based on them being evil, overly profit-orientated, horrific capitalists has at least one landlord on their own front bench.

Ali appears to own two rental properties in his home town of Leeds. There’s no two ways about it, this is the most outrageous hypocrisy of the highest order.

The Greens have attempted to mitigate the damage by sending out another deputy leader, Rachel Millward, to defend Ali.

The idea of Rachel Millward being your best weapon against hypocrisy is the political equivalent of sending Rachel Reeves to host a CV workshop.

Millward, herself no stranger to the concept of hypocrisy, is well known for her "refugees welcome" stance, whilst simultaneously arguing against any being brought into a former army barracks in her own constituency. She appears to believe refugees are very welcome indeed, just somewhere, anywhere else.

Appearing on the BBC, Millward was unable to confirm or deny she was a landlord herself, but argued that it’s OK that Mothin Ali is one as he’s only "renting to family members" and therefore isn’t making a profit.

Aside from the fact that many mortgage providers forbid this, if profit isn’t Mothin Ali’s motivation, why on earth has he bought those properties via a limited company? Owning a rental property via a company reduces a landlord’s tax liability, therefore increasing profit. Why do this if profit isn’t the motivation?

So the Greens now find themselves in the hilariously hypocritical situation of having one deputy leader of the party who simultaneously wants to ban landlords, and increase their taxes in order to do so, owning two rental properties himself, and doing so in a way that reduces his tax liability. And that person being defended by another deputy leader of the same party who herself can’t deny she is also a landlord.

It’s difficult to judge whether these people are just incredibly stupid, or instead believe we are? Is it any wonder the electorate are in despair at the horrifically poor standard of leader we’re subjected to?

On the subject of low standards, the other outrageous example of hypocrisy from a politician seemingly forgetting about everything she once stood for this week comes from Labour’s Stella Creasy.

Creasy has previously been utterly vociferous in her condemnation of misogyny and gender-segregation. So much so, she fought a campaign against the two-hundred-year-old private members’ club The Garrick as it didn’t allow women to join. She described the venue as an "old boys’ club" whose rules "hold women back".

So it’s rather odd, with Creasy’s apparent strong stance on segregation, to this week find her posting praise for the Milad Al Nabi march in her constituency, describing it glowingly as a "noisy annual celebration for our local Muslim community of the Prophet Mohammed’s birthday".

Especially as the video she posted showed no women on the march at all. Zero. None whatsoever.

The reason? Because the women who attend are segregated from the men. You’d think she’d be outraged once this hypocrisy was pointed out to her, wouldn’t you? That she’d apply the same high standards she fought for regarding that "old boys’ club" to this event?

You’d be very wrong. Because far from condemning the segregated nature of the Milad Al Nabi march, Creasy not only defended it, she couldn’t have been any more pious or condescending to her critics — mainly women — if she’d tried.

“Many religions do have separate events and structures,” Creasy told columnist Jenni Russell. Whilst the MP isn’t wrong to point this out, does this in any way justify such blatant public segregation?

When GB News’ own Dawn Neesom sarcastically commented, “Lovely to see so many women enjoying the birthday party…”, Creasy replied with a video of Muslim women who’d attended (separately from the men) with the caption, “Hi Dawn, they made this video just for people like you…”

Who are these "people like" Dawn that Stella Creasy is referring to? Those who have legitimate questions about whether such public misogyny is OK? Something under any other circumstances Creasy herself would undoubtedly do?

I’m sure the MP presumed her reply to Dawn Neesom would end matters, but far from it. Because the video she’d used to demonstrate just how tolerant and diverse the event was for the women in Walthamstow featured a number of local women covered from head to toe in black, also wearing burkas or full-face niqabs.

Stella Creasy genuinely believed she was going to win the argument showing a lack of misogyny in Walthamstow with a video showing segregated women in full-face veils. Her logic utterly beggars belief.

Once this further ridiculous double-standard was pointed out to the Walthamstow MP by The Spectator’s Noa Hoffman, she doubled down further, with a delusional word salad claiming misogyny is “inbuilt across society and every religion” and that a refusal to allow these women to dress so modestly would be “refusing agency to women to also choose how they dress and how they organise themselves”.

Yes, Stella Creasy is trying to sell the idea of women having to wear full-face veils as “agency” and being able to “choose”. And she’s implying we’re the sexist ones for asking whether it’s OK women are pressured to dress in this way.

What “agency” would these women be afforded by their own community if they chose not to dress in that manner? How much is it a right to “choose” if a woman is going to be shunned for making the wrong choice?

And how can an MP who has made such a virtue out of fighting misogyny, to the point her own website has an entire page dedicated to it, not only turn a blind eye, but actively celebrate such blatant segregation and sexism right in front of her?

Over 25 per cent of the electorate in Walthamstow is of the Islamic faith. That’s over four times higher than the national average. So, of course, Stella Creasy is going to do as many mind-gymnastics as possible to justify such blatant sexism on her own doorstep if it secures her position as an MP.

Elected leaders who want to ban landlords when it serves them politically, being landlords themselves. And others who supposedly fight misogyny, ignoring it when it serves them politically.

It’s a complete abandonment of principles and morals when it suits them. It’s despicable, it’s blatant, it’s outrageous, and we all deserve so much better.

Is it any wonder trust in politics is so low, we no longer believe a word these people say?

And is it really so much to ask that our leaders simply practise what they preach?