The Green Party is famously opposed to gas-guzzling 4x4s – especially diesels – polluting our cities and have vowed to ban them sooner than any other party.
So it’s somewhat surprising to find one of their brightest young candidates in the local elections not only driving a huge Mercedes diesel SUV around the streets of south London, but even making a song and dance about the fact.
Local council candidate Adam Kamenetzky’s critics accuse him of rank hypocrisy over his car choice.
But far from keeping quiet about his ownership of the car for eight years, Mr Kamenetzky, 45, has become one of the leading campaigners in the ‘dieselgate’ legal saga at the High Court.
He even featured in an article in a lefty-green bible last year to press his case – though his Green Party membership oddly didn’t get a mention there.
Mr Kamenetzky, who says he is ‘passionate’ about the environment, uses his 2.1L Mercedes M-Class every day as a family car in London.
Speaking about the High Court case last year, he told The Guardian: ‘I want the alleged deception of these manufacturers to be brought into the open and for them to be held to account.’
The Green Party aims to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars within three years and remove all such vehicles from UK roads.
Critics of Green Party local council candidate Adam Kamenetzky (pictured, with his Mercedes diesel SUV last year) have accused him of rank hypocrisy over his car choice
But far from keeping quiet about his ownership of the car for eight years, Mr Kamenetzky (pictured), 45, has become one of the leading campaigners in the ‘dieselgate’ legal saga at the High Court
The party instead wants the public to transition to electric vehicles or walk, cycle and use public transport to lower emissions and improve public health.
Mr Kamenetzky, who works as an activist researcher for a company that educates organisations about racial inequality, is seeking election to Wandsworth Council in southwest London in the May 7 local elections.
He refused to comment on his car when approached by the Daily Mail at his £1.4million five-bedroom home in Streatham Park.
One local said: ‘He has said he can’t afford a new car so he has kept it. He’s been busy with a case at the High Court.
‘The car is used every day. He may have been able to sell and get a cheaper electric car but he has not done that and I’m not sure why.’
The local Tooting Conservative Association accused Mr Kamenetzky and the Green Party of hypocrisy.
They said: ‘No wonder the Greens have got Labour panicking in Furzedown and Tooting Broadway.
‘It shows true dedication to be able to compete on hypocrisy.’
In campaign material shared online, Mr Kamenetzky says he is campaigning for a ‘more compassionate and inclusive approach’ to local politics.
Mr Kamenetzky (pictured, dressed for a gig as a violinist in the collective ‘Basement Orchestra’), who works as an activist researcher for a company that educates organisations about racial inequality, is seeking election to Wandsworth Council in southwest London in the May 7 local elections
He added: ‘I’m passionate about health, the environment, racial injustice, and the creative arts.’
The candidate says he wants to ‘make hope normal’ if elected to represent the Furzedown Ward where the average house price exceeds £800,000.
The ‘dieselgate scandal’ which has seen 1.6 million diesel car owners take manufacturers to court.
Claimants argued they had been lied to about their cars’ environmental impact after it emerged numerous manufacturers had installed illegal software in millions of diesel vehicles to cheat on emissions tests.
A guilty verdict could see the carmakers forced to pay billions of pounds in compensation but this could be several years away.
Despite Mr Kamenetzky claiming he was mis-sold his own 2013 Mercedes ML250, he has kept the car, which he has owned since 2018. (Mercedes was first implicated in dieselgate two years earlier in 2016.)
Extrovert Adam likes nothing better than to make a song and dance in his spare time as a violinist in the collective ‘Basement Orchestra’, often dressing up and wearing face paint to suit the gig.
He and his wife Lizzie, a successful former chef, who now writes books, including those accompanying the Great British Bake Off, have twin boys.
The candidate (pictured, on the campaign trail) says he wants to ‘make hope normal’ if elected to represent the Furzedown Ward where the average house price exceeds £800,000
The Green Party is fielding dozens of candidates in Wandsworth ahead of the May 7 elections in a bid to oust Labour.
The council, which Margaret Thatcher once said was her ‘favourite’, was Tory-run for 44 years until 2022.
Green Party candidates across the UK have triggered a wave of controversies ahead of the local elections.
In Camden, northwest London, candidate Aziz Rahman Hakimi triggered outrage after blaming ‘Zionists’ for the 9/11 World Trade Centre attacks and suggesting the arson attack on Jewish community ambulances in Golders Green last month was a ‘false flag’ operation.
Croydon Green candidate Mark Adderley, husband of Loose Women star Nadia Sawalha, has shared posts comparing Israel to Nazi Germany and suggested Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ‘works for Jeffrey Epstein’.
Tope Olawoyin, a Green Party candidate in Havering, withdrew after suggesting that individuals arrested for the Golders Green arson were likely Jewish because their names had not been released.
