Zack Polanski, leader of the Green Party, has been selected as his party's candidate for the Holborn and St Pancras by-election on 8 October, called to replace Sir Keir Starmer as MP. The announcement was overshadowed by a Daily Mail finding that Mr Polanski was registered to vote under two separate names, Zack Polanski and his birth name David Paulden, at the same London address in both 2020 and 2021, with both entries showing him eligible to cast a vote. The Green Party says the duplication stemmed from a council administrative error rather than any wrongdoing, but the episode raises awkward questions just as he steps up his bid to become an MP.

Electoral registers for Latimer House in Fitzrovia, examined by the Mail via the British Library archives, show both names listed as separate voters in the years Mr Polanski contested the Cities of London and Westminster seat and later won a London Assembly seat. The Green Party says he changed his name by deed poll in April 2019, promptly notified Westminster Council, and later flagged the duplicate entry again in March 2021, insisting he never voted more than once; lawyers acting for him have also written to the Mail reiterating this. It is not the only administrative controversy to affect him, having earlier this year apologised over an "unintentional mistake" involving unpaid council tax on a houseboat.