SOCIALIST UNITY

I’m not sure what’s happening with George Galloway’s radio show these days, but this excerpt makes clear why the sooner he’s back on air the better.

Very good to see George on BBC’s flagship Question Time programme last night, with Andy Burnham and Sally Bercow. I think the mood of the audience was interesting, the Tories were given a hard time.

When Respect failed to win any MPs in the general election there was a danger of complete marginalisation. But George was on Question Time yesterday, and Salma Yaqoob on the same show last week. This is interesting because the space filled by Respect of social democratic politics that is uncompromising over anti-racism and anti-imperialism, remains relevant. Respect was highly successful in projecting and promoting George and Salma as very able advocates of that political viewpoint, and they have not lost their access to mainstream media. Result!

George seemed more relaxed and looked more comfortable than he has for a while, and I think this reflects the enormous stress and pressure that electoral politics involves. Now that the election is passed, he has an albatross lifted from his neck. He gave a very able performance, especially over the question of the health service reforms.

Andy Burnham came over well last night. He is still an outsider in the leadership contest, but has certainly done himself no harm by standing and establishing himself as a more heavyweight politician in the public eye.

From George Galloway’s Daily Record blog

I still believe the Sixties and Seventies were a golden age for popular music. But there was dross, too. Scanning the depleted music shelves in a motorway service station last week, I happened upon a compilation priced at £8 for a four-CD pack of oldies. I scanned the best of them - and snapped it up.

Some songs stood the test of time but others, sheer rhapsody to me at the time, fail it.

… The star who shines brighter than all the rest on this trip down memory lane is Dusty Springfield - as fresh today as a spring field should be. And, as it happens, one of the many projects on which I’m working - with Scots writer Ron McKay - is a stage Musical, eponymously entitled Dusty.

I know you won’t be able to resist teasing about this, because Dusty Springfield’s song titles really lend themselves to satirical application (I have picked a deliberately neutral cover version from her above). However, good luck to George for this project.

Meanwhile, speaking from the USA where he is on a speaking tour, George Galloway said: “Israel has massacred unarmed peace activists aboard a flotilla taking emergency aid to the besieged Palestinian people in Gaza. This is a watershed that will change the perception of the world, as Sharpeville and Soweto did to the Apartheid regime in South Africa.

“It unmasks Israel which no-one can now consider a member of the ‘international community’ but is rather a rogue state, a pariah state.

“The embargo and blockade of Gaza must be brought to an end. This has been underwritten by the United States, by Britain and the European Union, but this has got to end now.”

Classic George:

By George Galloway

I congratulate my successor Rushanara Ali on her successful election and wish her all the best. If not for Respect’s victory in Bethnal Green and Bow in 2005, Oona King would have held the seat for thirty years and the British Bangladeshis might never have had their first MP.

Congratulations also to Jim Fitzpatrick on his substantial victory in Poplar and Limehouse, and to Labour for its victory in the council. I hope this Labour council will be free of the pressure and manipulation to which the previous was subject by regional officials who don’t live in the borough.
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I also want to thank the people of Tower Hamlets for resurrecting my political life after Mr Blair expelled me over the Iraq War and my Glasgow constituency was abolished. It was a privilege indeed to serve them. In defeating Oona King we together proved that there are limits, and that devastating war is beyond them.

It was a bad night for Respect in our three target parliamentary seats - in Tower Hamlets and Birmingham. But we did poll almost thirty thousand votes across the three constituencies. Not too bad for a left-wing party squeezed like all the smaller parties by the presidential style national televised national election. Our council candidates here, with the honourable exception of Councillor Harun Miah in Shadwell, were unfortunately swamped by this national tide. But they, and we, will be back. We thank every one of those residents who voted for us and ask them to stay with us.

Respect has a record to be proud of in this borough. In stopping the privatisation of eleven council estates and ending stock transfer, we defended the vital principle of council housing. And our initiative for a directly elected Mayor in Tower Hamlets won a thumping majority in last week’s referendum. Respect will be fully involved in the October election for a powerful Mayor - watch this space!

We will also be fully involved in the campaign for fair voting, with every vote counting at last in this country. It is absurdly undemocratic that in a borough in which Labour commanded around 40% of the votes cast in the parliamentary elections it should now have 100% of the parliamentary representation and 80% of the seats on the council. The establishment of a directly elected mayor, to be elected by an absolute majority of voters, is a partial move to a more democratic system. But now, more than ever before, we need voting reform at a parliamentary and local council level.

Above all we have to recognise that all three main parties are openly threatening, or should I say promising, massive cuts in our public services and no improvement at all in the housing social and economic plight of so many in the borough. When the pain starts and the people cry out, I promise you, Respect will be there by their side. The fightback starts now.

The Wharf is a free newspaper handed out all over Docklands

George Galloway waged a war on banks in Canary Wharf during a heated pre-election debate this week.

Respect’s leader and candidate for Poplar and Limehouse said anti-social behaviour orders should be given to bankers and that business rates from the estate should go to the poorer areas of Tower Hamlets.

Fellow candidates for the seat, Labour’s Jim Fitzpatrick - the former MP for Poplar and Canning Town - and the Conservatives’ Tim Archer, defended the banks against Mr Galloway during the debate hosted by Limehouse Community Forum.

Mr Galloway said: “Tim Archer says Canary Wharf is part of us but there are about 100,000 people working there and just seven per cent live in Tower Hamlets.

“That doesn’t sound like we are Canary Wharf.

“And some of the richest bankers - thanks to New Labour - are earning millions in bonuses.

“We’re the third most deprived borough in England, while being based between the gleaming spires of Canary Wharf and the City of London.”

And when talk turned to the effectiveness of anti-social behaviour orders in the Tower Hamlets, Mr Galloway said: “The best place to start on Asbos is with bankers at Canary Wharf.”

A former Barclays worker, Mr Archer dismissed Mr Galloway’s claims and said business was doing much for the borough.

He blamed local schools for the small number of local residents working at Canary Wharf.

He said: “Despite what George Galloway says, many people know Canary Wharf isn’t just about investment bankers driving Porsches, it’s about a range of jobs, which local people can get.

“But they have been let down by the education system. They are just as bright, maybe brighter but lack opportunity. Let’s give people an education to get jobs right here.”

In response, Mr Galloway said: “If the Tories get elected there will be savage cuts in public services.

“You can’t come here and say, ‘We want services,’ when your party says, ‘We’re cutting services’.

“You are a member of a party remembered throughout the land that scrapped public expenditure under Margaret Thatcher.

“We should tax Canary Wharf. The rates go straight to Alistair Darling to spend. We in

Tower Hamlets should get the rates and spend the money here - it would transform the place.”

Mr Fitzpatrick, whose former constituency ceased to exist after boundaries were altered for next month’s election, argued Mr Galloway’s plans would be unfair.

He said: “Business rates are spent so each area benefits.

“If we keep the money for Canary Wharf there would be other areas that would be short of public resources.”

The trio debated a number of issues in the three-hour forum at Urban Bar in Limehouse.

As well as attacking bankers, Mr Galloway repeatedly focused on his favourite subject - the war in Afghanistan.

However, at one point the former Labour MP was left struggling after he asserted that MPs’ children were not fighting in warzones around the world and Mr Fitzpatrick pointed out that his stepson was going to serve in Afghanistan next year.

One area in which the candidates were all in agreement was over encouraging the area’s reputation for cultural diversity, although Mr Archer argued more should be done to make sure everyone in the community could speak English and was critical of what he identified as Labour cuts in that area.

They also agreed that St George’s Day should be celebrated and the flag should be reclaimed from right-wing elements.

However, Mr Galloway, a Scotsman, said: “I’m all for celebrating St George’s Day but you need to make sure you don’t become fanatical about it.”

On the issue of Docklands’ transport problems over the weekends, Mr Archer said it was unacceptable and down to a “lack of joined up thinking”.

Mr Fitzpatrick said the Tories’ failure to guarantee funding for the Crossrail project threatened to “choke” the Canary Wharf estate in the future.

A cracking leaflet promoting George Galloway, a big voice for the voiceless.

Respect will be having a big impact in Tower Hamlets on Saturday,  meeting at noon 17 April, 49 Hanbury Street London E1, just off Brick Lane.

The following report from the Evening Standard, while far from being sympathetic to Respect and George Galloway, does show that the Poplar and Limehouse seat is a close three way marginal, and a Respect victory is on the cards. Indeed, the safest vote to stop the Tory-boy candidate, Tim Archer, is to vote Respect, vote George Galloway

The wedding of barrister Bodrul Islam to investment banker Mahbuba Kamali was meant to be a private affair.

The bride and groom had invited 800 guests to their £25,000 reception last August and — as both families were staunch Labour supporters — among them was to be local Labour MP Jim Fitzpatrick.

But when he and his wife arrived at the London Muslim Centre and were told that men and women would be seated separately, they walked out. Not even a call from the groom’s father promising a table for non-Muslims to sit together could entice him back.

Instead Mr Fitzpatrick called a local paper to complain about the growing influence of the hardline Muslim group, Islamic Forum of Europe, which he blamed for imposing segregation.

But Mr Fitzpatrick’s politicisation of this private affair — the groom does not support the IFE and says it was “our family’s choice to have a segregated wedding” — has not gone down well in the Bangladeshi community, which makes up 40 per cent of the local electorate.

Indeed, the subsequent decision by Mr Islam, 29, to defect from Labour and stand as a council candidate for George Galloway’s Respect party, and that of his in-laws to switch their support to Tory candidate Tim Archer, is symptomatic of how the tectonic plates are shifting in Poplar & Limehouse.

Five years ago Mr Fitzpatrick, a former fireman whose working class roots play well here, won easily with a 7,129 majority.

But boundary changes, which took out Labour-supporting Canning Town and brought in the wealthy Tory-supporting wards of Wapping and St Katherine’s as well as Shadwell, a Respect stronghold, have cut his lead in half.

With the fallout from the wedding fiasco and the national rise of the Tories in the polls, this once-safe Labour seat has become a neck-and-neck three-horse race.

Ironically the biggest beneficiary of what Mr Fitzpatrick, the Farming Minister, now admits to the Standard was a “clumsily-handled affair” might not be Mr Galloway, but the Conservatives, a party that last won in the East End more than a century ago.

Muslim community activist Abu Mumin ­— who was thanked by Mr Galloway in his victory speech after taking Bethnal Green and Bow in the shock result of the 2005 election — believes that Mr Galloway is a “busted flush”.

“Last time the Iraq war was Galloway’s ticket, but you don’t have similar sentiments now. People are fed up that Galloway hardly ever speaks in Parliament and that he went on Big Brother.

“Fitzpatrick would have won easily, but his rant on the wedding has made him look anti-Bangladeshi. I’ve got staff who live on the Isle of Dogs where Archer is a councillor and they say he’s hard-working and that they’re voting for him. A number of mosques have come out in support of Archer, which is big news because they’ve never supported a Conservative before.”

Of all London’s 73 parliamentary seats, Poplar and Limehouse is perhaps the most economically divided. It takes in Canary Wharf, which has generated 95,000 jobs and where the average man’s salary is more than £100,000, but it also suffers a 77 per cent child poverty rate, the fifth highest in the UK.

The crude calculus is that for David Cameron to win, he must take 117 marginal seats, of which Poplar and Limehouse is number 105 on his hit- list. Ladbrokes has it too close to call, with Labour and the Conservatives joint favourites and Mr Galloway on 7/1.

Last week, in an attempt to shore up support for Mr Fitzpatrick, Gordon Brown visited a community centre in Poplar and Limehouse.

But how do the candidates see the race? With all to play for, the Evening Standard joined each one on the doorstep to find out.

Mr Fitzpatrick, 58, meets me at his Westminster office. As we travel by Tube to Bromley-by-Bow in the northeast of his constituency, he asks: “Do you know why people take an instant dislike to George Galloway?”

He pauses. “It saves time.” He smiles at the joke, but there is clearly no love lost between the two Scotsmen, although any suggestion that he is not taking Mr Galloway seriously is waved away.

“I think we’ve got every chance of holding on to the seat with what we’ve achieved — the £1.3 billion new wing of the New London Hospital is just one example — but you can never underestimate Galloway. He’s a brilliant orator and with Respect winning 12 seats in the 2006 local elections, he’ll be confident he can take the Muslim vote.”

Demographically the electorate is split evenly between the white working class and Bangladeshi Muslims with affluent young professionals making up the remaining 20 per cent. But it’s the high turnout rate of Muslims — almost twice that of the white working class, says Mr Fitzpatrick — that makes their votes especially crucial.

Was it a mistake, then, to walk out of that wedding? “No, I’m opposed to forced segregation and I wanted to highlight the influence that the hardline IFE are exerting on the Muslim community. I admit that the way I did it was clumsy and I’ve apologised to the groom’s family for any offence caused, but a Dispatches programme which aired on Channel 4 last month vindicated my concern about the IFE.”

So has Mr Fitzpatrick made the blunder of his career? Mr Galloway, 55, who has arranged to meet me in a part of Bow known as “mugger’s alley”, believes so. Arriving in customary fashion an hour late, he pulls up in his Lexus, parks on a double-yellow line and emerges looking like an ageing rock-star in a shiny metallic-grey suit.

“Somebody said to me, God must really like you: it was Oona King voting for war last time, now its Fitzpatrick waging war on Muslims this time’. Labour will come third here,” he says, “I’ll put my house on it.”

Mr Galloway dismisses criticism that he’s yesterday’s man. “The boundary change is a big win for me: out went Canning Town and with it 6,000 votes for Jim, and in came Shadwell, where we hold all three council seats, and 6,000 votes for me.”

How does he rate Mr Archer’s chances? “There hasn’t been a Tory in the East End since they put children up chimneys,” he says. “Tory boy they call him round here. He reminds me of Michael Gove in his early days, but he’s a player in the election, no doubt about that.”

The 35-year-old councillor for Blackwall and Cubitt Town ward was made redundant from Barclays last year and has campaigned full time for the last six months.

Can the Conservatives really take the East End for the first time since 1895? “I’m optimistic,” says Mr Archer, meeting me on the St George’s Estate off Cable Street where resident Shelim Uddin invites him into his flat.

“Mr Archer, we share your views on family values — don’t worry, this time we will put you in, this time we are serious,” he says. It’s a strange sight watching a Tory candidate feted by a man watching Bangladeshi TV, but Mr Archer says his Muslim backing is growing.

“Bangladeshis traditionally voted Labour but Galloway unshackled that link last time and it could benefit us with voters no longer naïve about Respect. Jim created a problem for himself by walking out of that wedding. Most Muslim weddings are segregated, so why was Jim surprised? People wonder whether he was courting the white vote, whether he had another agenda.”