Say what you like about him, they were out in force all week campaigning. I work at the uni' in that constituency and the only loud speakers I heard today, or even all week, have been for him.

He's done his research too. When he announced his campaign he hit all the right emotional local politics buttons for me. I don't live in that constituency anymore, not that I'd vote for someone who's as infantile as thinking opposing one thing means giving oxygen to their genocidal and dictatorial enemies anyway, but I can see how he would appeal to local Labour stock. He got a huge local muslim turnout and pushed hard for it, but one of the issues they used to get that vote was don't vote for who your community leaders tell you to - you end up with people who are good at giving out taxi licences to their mate's brothers and nothing else.

Galloway went past me in his shouty wagon on Tuesday and I had the great pleasure of both holding up traffic and giving him the finger at the same time.

Hopefully not, but the councils in these areas don't help. I look after three clients in Bradford at the moment, two are new build social housing and one is conversions of flats back to houses, also social housing. All three are being built in predominantly Asian areas and will be occupied by the Asian community. Speaking to some of the lads (and managers) who are working on them who are local to the area, there seems to be a lot of resentment that very little money is allocated to areas that are mainly white social housing areas, in fact one lad who lives on a large council estate said they are in desperate need of even basic repairs but there is no money for routine maintenance. This is the sort of thing the BNP will latch on to and gain support by playing the race card and could end in an election success as the white community feel they are being left behind.

There may well be the need for housing in the areas where they are situated, but spreading money out to cover all areas would help ease any feelings of 'us and them'

Irrespective of my views on Galloway the result is pleasing in that it's showing the first stage of people's rejection of mainstream political parties. Hopefully the UK is finally getting the idea. Vote them all out and have Parliament full of independent MPs. That's Big Society!

Pretty much exactly what I thought word for word.

So you'd have happily worked alongside Respect's resident anti-Semites, who also got involved in Bradford? Or just turned a blind eye to that?

It shows just how little Labour have learned, especially after Galloway had beaten Oona King in 2005. To lose one safe seat to Galloway is misfortune, to lose two safe seats to the man is sheer incompetence.

The May local elections will be a watershed moment for Miliband

BTW, [url=http://www.leftfootforward.org/2012/03/george-galloway-bradford-west-by-election-anti-semite-supporters/here's some more detail on Galloway's campaign[/url.

In essence, disgusting.

If they're playing the sectarian card, they've missed an important point: are Muslims so predicated to voting for rabid Catholics? When's the Pope's official visit to Islamabad?

Bradford has long been a lost cause in terms of the failed multiculturism experiment......Galloway's election win and the pandering to the extreme, anti-British Muslim vote which was scarily apparent, has just sent that area to an even lower level in the eyes of the rest of the UK.

Personally, I thought the 'Bradford Spring' victory speech was almost inflammatory in its tone.....In the era of racial sensitivity that we now live, Galloway is no more welcome in British politics than Nick Griffin is.

Who really wants to vote for Labour? Can you see any of the shadow cabinet forming a government?

To be fair, even though I get your drift and agree in the main, they couldn't fare much worse than the present lot.

Though Thatcher and Blair (rightly) had their critics, they at least had brains.....Cameron and his cronies are just plain incompetent.

A bit like Warsi trotting off to Rome and shrilling that the West should stop being afraid of its Christian heritage?

Lots of people from outside Bradford keep telling us this. You do not have even the slightest idea of what you are talking about beyond crude stereotypes of the city you've picked up from third parties.

I don't blame you for your reaction, though I'll refrain from accepting your invite.....The simple thing is though, to many outside Bradford (and probably a good few inside), it is a city which highlights everything wrong with the idea of multiculturism.

Large swathes monopolised by people with no wish to be 'British'....Indeed, many seem to have a major dislike to the country, despite being happy to use the many advantages our country offers over the nations that they 'support' over their adopted home.

The rhetoric of the last 24 hours has not helped Bradford one bit, and the sight of Galloway being chaired around by cheering Muslims is something that will only serve to build tensions around the country as a whole..... This was an election with massive racial undertones, which Galloway was well aware of, and appallingly exploited.

I should point out that I'm a Bierley lad, another all-white estate. Buttershaw was a culture shock because it didn't have herds of wild horses roaming around it.

And in 2010 Labour won it back again from Respect when they put up a former assistant to Oona King v a former assistant of Galloway (who had left the picture).

It was in fact one of only three seats in the entire 2010 general election Labour took off another party so does not being able to hold onto your seat as the incumbent party in the face of government unpopularity not represent sheer incompetence as well?

Or is the reality of the matter protest votes evaporate at general elections?

Whatever the truth in that to link 2005 and 2012 is nuts. None of the mainstream parties can look on this with any comfort. The Condems will in the sense it takes the headlines away from the last few weeks of incompetence but that is head in the sand stuff. If this result represents anything real then they are all in for a kicking whenever a protest candidate pops up. The trouble is it does not represent reality.

If Galloway stood in that idiot Francis Maude's constituency were he to resign Galloway would loose his deposit. So Galloway won't do it. He wouldn't do it on Chester either where I live which is a marginal. All he will ever do is pick constituencies where he thinks he can tap into what is a disenfranchised Labour vote because he is a political coward and opportunist.

He is a very good one when it comes to by-elections and Labour have to work out why they lost and how they can deal with his regular by-election standings but it really doesn't represent a great political shift in my opinion because the man fronting it is a discredited moron.

I love Miacca.....

This is what I like about us lefties. We can agree to disagree. Unlike the other lot, we have that ability! I wont bother with that spare room Minty. Save it for the likes of Wigan Fan after drinkypoos. You probably have a lot more in common.

Question Time Thursday 19 April from Leeds should be a don't miss.

Yvette Cooper v Sayeeda Warsi

I've also tipped Damo off about it, so he can apply for tickets

Ey up, the Baroness. She'll be making a mammary of herself again then....What really p!sses me off Dave, is the people who whinge and moan about the world being taken over by neo lib/con politics. Whilst some of us, in our teens, were flying around picket lines in Yorkshire, and at Orgreave, others were baking currant buns for their Daily Mail reading mothers.

But Coddy isn't excusing a Trot stooge who happily becomes sexist and homophobic when it suits his desire to appeal to religious fundamentalists - and who is also helped by anti-Semites, although I cannot imagine the appeal there (beyond his campaign having previously linked LGBT rights to the struggle of the Palestinian people and that the former was far less important than the latter, although nobody had even linked the two in the first place).

If support for such utterly unprincipled, bigoted schmucks is some sort of thing the left needs to aspire to, then heaven help it.

Bring back Arthur all is forgiven - and people talk Galloway's principles!!

I'm not aspiring to anything. Galloway would probably confess to being as imperfect as the rest of us. Sometimes though, you've got to get down and a little bit dirty if the means justify the end. Nobody posts their political dissatisfaction more on this board than you. You should be happy that the established order of things has been rocked a little. I am.

Bet he wouldn't.

'THE VICTORY IS THE STRUGGLE' - Just for you Sal.