Undoubted low point of the election is Galloway's narrow 823 majority in Bethnal Green (Wembley - any insight into your old stamping ground?):
Bethnal Green & Bow Election result
George Galloway 15,801 +35.9%
Oona King 14,978 -16.5%
I blogged a couple of times about Oona, once pro, once anti:
MPs compared Gaza to Warsaw ghetto
Black-Jewish MP pelted with eggs at War Memorial
Al Jazeera certainly noticed Gorgeous George - I'm interested to see what others can dig up about Arab/Muslim reaction to the election.
Al Jazeera election report - "Blair wins election, admits Iraq war divided Britons"
However not all is rosy for the odious Galloway, I'm pleased to say. His extraordinary libel win, in which the question of the veracity of the allegations against him were never raised in court, will come up for appeal:
Telegraph to appeal against Galloway libel win
Guardian
April 18, 2005
and you gotta love this!
Blow for Galloway as wife seeks divorce
Scotsman
1 May 2005
GEORGE Galloway’s bid to return to Westminster was dealt a potentially damaging blow last night after his wife issued an extraordinary series of allegations against him and declared her intention to seek a divorce. His Palestinian-born wife, Amineh Abu-Zayyad, asked how Galloway, the former Labour MP for Glasgow Kelvin, could name his party Respect when, she claims, he did not have any respect for her.
13 comments:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4016803.stm
Galloway denies Saddam 'fawning'
BBC
16/11/04
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http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/archives/2005/04/15/galloway_exposed.php
Harry's Place: Galloway exposed
George Galloway likes to pretend that his infamous salute to Saddam Hussein was meant for the Iraqi people not the dictator himself. The RESPECT leader and candidate for Bethnal Green and Bow insists that his status as a frequent flyer to Baghdad during the days of the dictatorship was merely to help the Iraqi people and that he was no friend of the genocidal regime.
But, while attention has been focused on his election campaign and unnoticed by the media, the blog Respect Watch reports that Galloway has been on Arab television recently appealing for the release of Saddam's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, who faces charges of crimes against humanity for his role in the gassing of Kurds at Halabja.
Check out Galloway v Paxo. Incredibly, Paxo's belligerent style completely lets george off the hook. Much as I despise galloway, Paxman's opening question and general attitude of 'may I suggest you smell' is NOT helping to make the political process more accountable.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/blog/4519553.stm
JUst read the Aljazeera report that you linked to. Pretty fair I thought. Yes, they start from the standpoint that the war is illegal and that Blair lied about it but you can find similar opinions in most broadsheets. Overall I didn't thinki the coverage was bad at all. V interesting message board follows it.
"Respect MP denies report from US senators"
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,1482099,00.html
Galloway faces renewed claims over Saddam oil
Guardian
Thursday May 12, 2005
Radio 4's Today programme on Galloway this morning:
BBC - Radio 4 - Today Programme Listen Again:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/zthursday_20050512.shtml
0635 George Galloway's name has appeared in a report by a US Senate committee investigating allegations of corruption in the UN oil-for-food programme.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/ram/today1_galloway_20050512.ram
0709 A closer look at the reputation of the US Senate committee which investigated the UN oil-for-food programme.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/ram/today2_galloway_20050512.ram
Here's a link to a new thread about BBC bias - it also contains some references to galloway and the Paxman interview: http://impdec.blogspot.com/2005/05/bbc-buncha-bloody-commies.html
More Galloway here.
Dan will be nodding vigorously at this one:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2088-1879907,00.html
Giving everyone a stuffing shows Paxo has lost it
Jasper Gerard
The Sunday Times
November 20, 2005
As a humbler toiler in the interrogation trade I admire Paxo and have no time for political evasion. But perhaps he should find a second technique. He rarely elicits information and looks bored by it when he does. He aims to humiliate, which can be what MPs deserve, or it can be gratuitous, as when he asked wee George Galloway if he was proud to have defeated a black woman — what should Gorgeous have done, gallantly stood aside because Oona King happened to be black?
Paxman gets away with it because of the camera. Ever since John Nott, a defence secretary, was vilified when he flounced out of a studio, MPs have known they must sit through a skewering, however painful. If I tried a Paxo, I would be left with a blank page every week. But increasingly the Paxo technique can backfire, just engendering sympathy for the supposed victim. So when Paxo attacked Charles Kennedy, on the eve of his wedding, for marrying for the publicity, it appeared so graceless and groundless viewers must have thought: “Poor Charlie. Why is Jeremy being such a tit?”
Indeed. As vigorous a case of nodding as has ever been recorded.
In the light of the above Paxo post, take a look at what happened when The Daily Show's Jon Stewart confronted two partisan talk show hosts on CNN.
http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2652831?htv=12
Israelis "Playing Mini-Mengele"
Honest Reporting
29 December 2009
British MP George Galloway recycles the Swedish blood libel to employ Holocaust analogy.
British MP, Iranian Press TV presenter and media personality George Galloway, currently leading a "humanitarian convoy" to Gaza, has a history of anti-Israel activity. But even his latest diatribe in a column for Scotland's Daily Record plumbs new depths.
more
Respect's Salma Yaqoob denies 'supporting terrorism' claim
BBC
4 February 2011
A senior Birmingham councillor has accused the leader of the Respect Party of supporting terrorism by refusing to join an ovation for a British marine.
Salma Yaqoob, also a city councillor, did not stand when the marine who had been awarded the George Cross, entered the council chamber on Tuesday.
Ms Yaqoob said she did not stand as she was against the war in Afghanistan.
Liberal Democrat Martin Mullaney posted online that she would have applauded a suicide bomber. She denied the claim.
L/Cpl Matt Croucher, from Solihull, was awarded the George Cross for bravery for throwing himself on top of a Taliban grenade in Helmand in 2008 to protect his colleagues. His rucksack absorbed most of the impact of the explosion and he survived with minor injuries.
In a statement on Friday he said: "I feel all service personnel should be shown respect irrespective of the political climate."
Galloway and Livingstone: twins in so many ways
Nick Cohen
The Observer
Sunday 1 April 2012
...
For its contemptible willingness to exploit the suffering of others for the purposes of self-aggrandisement, no politician can beat Galloway's claim that his by-election victory was the "Bradford spring" – West Yorkshire's imitation of the uprisings against tyranny in the Arab world.
Galloway has bowed his head before tyrants across the Arab world. In 2005, he was the most abject of flunkies, when he praised Bashar al-Assad at Damascus University. "For me, he is the last Arab ruler, and Syria is the last Arab country," Galloway said. "It is the fortress of the remaining dignity of the Arabs, and that's why I'm proud to be here." The ruler of "the fortress of the remaining dignity of the Arabs" is now drowning the Arab spring in the blood of Arabs, as even Galloway's supporters ought to have noticed by now.
...
Galloway's victory shows that if the secular left does not take on sectarians, they will flourish. Admittedly, the unwary thought that Galloway, a Catholic Scot, might face difficulties in playing the communalist card in the Muslim wards of Bradford West. They should not have underestimated his brass neck. Brazen and polished, it shines like a lantern through the murk. "God KNOWS who is a Muslim," he said in his election literature. "And he KNOWS who is not. Instinctively, so do you. Let me point out to all the Muslim brothers and sisters what I stand for: I, George Galloway, do not drink alcohol and never have. Ask yourself if you believe the other candidate in this election can say that truthfully."
Having established to his satisfaction that he was a Muslim, he told a public meeting: "I believe in the judgment day. I believe that one day we will have to answer to the Almighty." Members of the audience were to say to their friends, "especially to other religious people", how they would explain to Allah "on the last day" their failure to vote for him, George Galloway, God's chosen candidate.
Not even Rick Santorum has said: "Vote for me or you will go to hell." Galloway's exploitation of the credulous appears to be in a league of its own. But what of Livingstone? What are the games he is playing with London Jews about? He issued a kind of apology, but anyone who had followed his history of Jew-baiting suspected that he was seeking to set Muslim against Jew in the hope of securing electoral advantage.
If you doubt that he is capable of such foul behaviour, consider how he explained to Gaydar Radio his support for Yusuf al-Qaradawi. The ultra-conservative theologian has endorsed wife-beating, female genital mutilation, the murder of apostates, the murder of Jewish civilians and, of particular interest to the presenters of a gay radio station, the murder of homosexuals. No one bothers to deny his recorded utterances, apart from Livingstone, who told Gaydar that Qaradawi's fatwas could be a forgery perpetrated by a "Zionist organisation... run by a former Mossad agent". It's the Jewish conspiracy once again, but this time from a Labour politician, rather than the BNP.
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