You know you only gamble once a year on the Grand National. Keep that money safe it that pocket of yours.

Errrr... no. No he wouldn't.


So any tactics at all are OK if you consider the ends to be worth it?

Really?


The idea behind rocking the established order of things is to end up with something better.

I'm forgetting you have a personal relationship with Gorgeous George. Perhaps you know him better than me? And yes, maybe things will have to get better. The s running the Labour party might have to shape up a little.

You don't describe the Bradford I live in and have lived in on and off for 50 years. Bradford is city which had a thriving manufacturing base, wool, metal casting and some assembly. Wool disappeared along with the likes of Crofts, Hepworth and Grandage and Metal Box disappeared and the likes of Pat Wall drove Bairds and English Electric out. The lack of large scale manufacturing has left a huge vacuum in the city.

The lawlessness of the Pakistani/Bangladeshi communities cannot be tackled due to race card issues,the race riots of 2001 set the precedence for what the police can and cannot do. The brutality of the tribal stuff of the eastern europeans is impossible to control. If you want an example of lawlessness check which post codes have the highest instances of uninsured vehicles in Britain? Drug dealing in this city is now endemic and openly transacted - if you want to see it in action take a walk down Leeds Rd any time after 4pm.

As the Asian community continue to breed at such a rapid rate - in 2009 the Pakistani community represented 20% of the total but accounted for 50% of all new births - it is having an effect on the population balance of the city.

The city centre has one of the highest instances of empty shops including a the huge Westfield hole at the bottom of the city where a failed development left its mark. The Asians understandably shop in their own shops especially the ladies and the whites go to Leeds as variety of shops are greater. The city centre is a virtual no go area at night.

Large quantities of the white population live in ghetto like council estates like Holme Wood - where horses out number cars, Ravenscliffe, Swain House and Buttershaw where lawlessness is equal to if not greater than that experienced in the areas populated by Asian/EE. The lack of work or desire to work has driven a culture of benefit abuse, drug consumption, general apathy but an anger based on racial bias.

Galloway saw an opportunity to expose this rift - the constituency had 40% Muslim catchment excluding the Uni - he knew the Imams were the key to success and he worked on their ego - they told their flock to vote for Galloway and they delivered the Muslim vote. The community leaders told everyone to vote for the Labour candidate purely because he was a Muslim - yet another illustration of where the power in the city really lies.

Bradford is close to a tipping point and Galloway's meddling for his own ends has probably accelerated this position. The idea of a bigot white MP being carried through the city on the shoulders of a group of Imams - Iranian stylee will not help matters.

Love to see what you mean by that as all the examples you have given suggest that the only issues are political opportunism.

I have sen no evidence of Galloway using anti semitism personally when i saw him interviewed he actually attacked anti semitism., Maybe some of his more unprincipled supporters have stirred things up.

AS for attacking the muslim labour candidate and accusing him of being an uncle tom and party apparatchik that is true. Labour have used Muslim "community Leaders" in bradford for years to deliver the asian voters as cannon fodder.

His big message to younger voters in particular was that the main parties have ignored their constituents and that he is anti war ( ie IraQ).

Personally i am glad that there will be one anti war MP in parliament who is prepared to stand up for his beliefs particularly when their is olikely to be an atack on Iran soon.

I reckon your ultra leftist and trot jibes are based on the idea that no one should challenge labour from the left when actually that is exactly what should be happening.

And I do not recognise the place you are talking about at all. I've heard the words plenty of times, I just don't recognise the place they're meant to describe. I said we are segregated along lines of class, outlook and any number of other things - just like everywhere else. If you're hoping to argue me away from that position that really wasn't a good start.

If you think there are no-go areas in this city you are beyond deluded. I've lived in half of them sporting a skinhead.

You don't need a personal relationship with someone to spot an egotistical self-serving wazzock. It's not as if he's been shy of the media or anything.

Shaking up Labour's leadership might well be a good thing, but if they adopt Galloway's tactics and position they'll be unelectable for a generation.

Don't despair too much, their used to it. I blame it on all you soppy liberal democrats!

Don't know whether to laugh or cry at this whole debacle.

At least George is fully focused on his constituency:



Bradford West, what have you done?

I fully respect both yours and Sal's views on Bradford, seeing as both of you are locals, but speaking as an outsider who visits the area regularly (once a week) through work, I can honestly say that the only thing I see, is a city which is segregated almost into ghettos of white and Asian.

I have visited various schools and witnessed how multiculturism simply hasn't worked.....The idea behind it is surely that all races and creeds mix, yet from my own experience the total opposite has happened in Bradford....At Carlton Bolling, I was actually racially insulted by a group of Asians, something which isn't rare from conversations I've had with the staff there.

What's apparent is that the last thing your area needs is a troublemaker like Galloway exploiting the obvious tensions that exist, especially with the inflammatory language that the man likes to use....With somebody like him involved in the political mix in Bradford, there can only be trouble heading your way.

We must simply agree to differ - I don't recognise the Bradford you describe and you don't recognise the Bradford I describe - so let us try and agree some things

Would you agree:
1. 20% of the population currently provide 50% of the new births?
2. Bradford has one of the highest instances of unoccupied retail spaces in the UK?
3. Westfield have left a huge hole - literally right in the centre of the city?
4. Two of the five post codes with the highest instances of uninsured vehicles in the UK start with BD?

I cannot see this village thing you suggest is going on - i see two distinct segregated areas Pakistani/Bangladeshi and the rest. You will not see many white residents in Mannnigham/Frizinghall/Great Horton and you will not see many P/B in Baildon, Idle, Eccleshill any Asians you do see will be Indians from East Africa or the sub continent. This soup of multi cultural integration you elude to is simply a fantasy IMO.

How many other cities have Pakinstani only schools where whites are prohibited to attend - do you really live in Bradford?

Ah, right. You're one of those on the left who'd rather have a few token victories and spend time moaning from opposition than actually have a party in power. And I'm a soppy [iex[/i-LD if you don't mind. No idea who I'll vote for next time around.

Jesus Kosh, don't go ditching them next time round. You've done the damage and you might be the only vote Nick can rely on. Stick with it.

It's as I've been saying for ages - Labour stands for no one or nothing; and even worse is lead by a muppet.

Give people an alternative who speaks their language is Labour will get trounced anywhere.

We have three main parties who are failing:

Tory - the Nasty Party
Labour - the Weasely Party
LibDems - The Big Joke Party

If enough, credible independents stand on local issues at the next GE we may even see a return to democracy (although knowing the British people's prospensity for swallowing sh**e, I doubt it).

I agree with all of those. But what do any of them have to do with the success or failure of multiculturalism in Bradford?



Then I can only say that you're blind. Especially so if you think the Pakistani / Bangladeshi part of the city is one when it's as fractured as everything else.

You've really never come across people who've never left the housing estate they grew up on? I grew up with people who were proud to say that.

You've never met the Pringle jumpered Volvo driver who hasn't been into the city for years?

Would you be also telling me that you've never come across professional middle class people from Asian backgrounds? Are they all Indian or something?



You really are blind.



I don't think such a thing does exist. It's one of the reasons I haven't said it does. What I have said is that Bradford highlights the way all modern society is segregated and alienated from itself, and that race and religion are just two other means by which that happens. There is nothing unique about the problems Bradford has except perhaps degree.

I did give examples of where people from different backgrounds but with similar outlooks work together, if that's what makes you think I do believe it exists. Here's another. I work at the university. We have the highest proportion of students from the same city of any in the country. I see thousands of young people from this city with similar outlooks in life integrating just fine.

In all the places I have lived I have also seen it happening, and that includes Manningham and Great Horton. I lived in the latter for ten years, right in the middle of BD7 - the worst of the post codes you mentioned. I've also seen it not happening in those places, as well as the estates I grew up on, and it's always the mouth breathers with no idea of what they could be other than what their parents were. We have many of those of every stripe and it doesn't matter if your parents conceived you in a Kashmiri mountain village, a middle class suburb of Lahore, Ilkely, or under the pool table in the Holme Wood Bound.



There are plenty where schools are allowed to discriminate on the grounds of religion, if that's what you mean. I think it's disgusting, fwiw.



For just shy of forty years.

I'm not claiming it's a paradise. I'm saying if you look at things through a race coloured lens then race is what you'll see. It's *way* more complicated than that.

I saw that tweet and guessed it can't be him, although apparently it is. O M G

We aren't saying Galloways thick now are we? He's maybe made a geuine mistake or perhaps it wasn't him? For the many of us who saw him disseminate and destroy that American Congress Select Committee then stupid would be a bad call....Whether you disagree with everything he spouts, eloquence and a fine command of the Scottish language are not his problems.

Interesting to hear from some of the young inspired activists who were out supporting Respect during the campaign on the Politics Show. Didn't realise that the Lib/Dems had lost their deposit. They'd best get used to that me thinks.

[url=http://www.metro.co.uk/news/894819-new-bradford-mp-galloway-in-twitter-slip-celebrating-victory-in-blackburnYes, it was him.[/url

Being a prick and being stupid are two different things.

Ah well, he'll have to live that little faux pas then....Being a victor, it's always easier for other people to live with your mistakes...Your right about the difference mind. Go and watch them yankee senators questioning him. Now they really were more like your definition of stupid.

I've seen it. Yes, he destroyed them, but that wasn't really hard to do given the gross idiocy he was confronted with. He's a lot of things, but he's certainly not stupid.

Seems to me that most of these posts are missing the point. Galloway's personality is not a 'non-issue' here but neither is it the main issue.

The reality is he was elected on a two-pronged political approach, against war and austerity, which had massive resonance across [iall sections[/i of the constituency.
In the predominantly white middle class area of Clayton, for example, Galloway got 900 votes against Labour's 40!

Nor is it a given that Galloway will automatically pick up the Muslim vote, however much he courts it. IMO he should be congratulated for breaking the 'braderi' networks that have corruptly tied much of the Asian community to Labour for decades.

Mintball's accusations would be funny if they weren't so rabid. The reality is that Galloway himself has moved away from a traditional catholic position on gay rights towards a position (and one that he has stated many times in public) that homophobes should 'Get over it' Incidentally, one of Galloway's 2 key advisers is himself a well-known gay activist.

The accusations of anti-semitism are also nothing new. They are typical of a blurred distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-semitism...a blurring which is particularly prevalent among pro-zionist pseudo lefties such as the one Mintball directs us to.

Feel free to use actual facts to dismiss what I described in terms of campaigning that went on down the road from where I live.

I look forward to it.

Disseminate?



That would have been worth watching.




When have you heard him speak Scottish?

Could have been worse. He could have inseminated them. I think I'm going to be sick.