No more than you have proof otherwise, but I do have proof of a consistent public message from Galloway on these issues.

Y'see that shows that you have not been paying attention. Because DG was railing about the importance of symbols last autumn when it came to poppies - and why he, holier than holy - could never wear one - yet he posts here under a picture created by an anti-Semitic, anti-union, anti-worker, right-wing individual.

And why do I hate Trots? Well, if you'd had the scum scab on your strike you might understand.

You havenot come up with anything close to proof.

Must try harder.

Christ, Charlie Marx would be downright embarrassed by some of you lot.

And never mind Lenin: 'an infantile disorder' indeed.

Without knowing details of your strike I can't comment possibly comment on it.

Nor do I know who the 'Trots' are that you are referring to.
I do know that Galloway is not and would never describe himself as a Trot. Nor would the vast majority of his supporters.

Furthermore entryism is distinctly not 'de rigeur' among Trotskyite groups...it may have been prior to the expulsion of the Militant tendency, but the two largest Trotskyite organisations in Britain wouldn't touch New Labour with a bargepole, let alone think about trying to change it from within.

Well I want to publicly apologise to Minty for my downright personal nastiness earlier in this thread. I agree with the vast majority of what she posts and enjoy the way she sticks up for herself. I like George, she doesn't. I'll have to be big enough to live with that!

No-one and certainly not I, can disprove something you say happened if they were not there. I have admitted this.
You should be big enough to admit that Galloway has consistently and publicly railed against homophobia, both on his radio show and at public meetings. This I can prove. The evidence, including a discussion between Galloway and Peter Tatchell is all over that there video sharing site.

Galloway is not perfect on these issues. He comes from a strict Catholic background and clearly carries a lot of baggage from it, but at least he will publicly speak out against homophobia when challenged by bigots.

What there isn't any denying is that the anti Iraq war ticket GG formulated his campaign upon, annihalating the Labour Party in the process, still resonates so loudly a decade after the event. I personally believe many will never turn back, or particularly should.

Have you actually read Left-wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder?
You scoff at entryism and then accuse your antagonists by quoting a tract that was written (in terms of Britain at least) very specifically to encourage it. Some mistake surely?

Perhaps so, and you have every right to believe he's a Pied Piper. The fact remains that he does inspire and energise people. His passion, maybe flamboyancy, mixed with his oratory brilliance is bandwagon jumping, magnetic material. He's proven to have that ability time and time again. Anthony Wedgewood Benn was another. When they speak, you listen, (maybe not agree) there are very few others over the last 30 years who have had the same ability.

Galloway is not fit to carry Benn's boots, let alone lace them. Neither would he have entertained some of the frankly nauseating stunts that 'Gorgeous George' has pulled in order to get airtime and column inches.

I don't disagree! Still, that doesn't mean he lacks the abilities I spoke of above. Militant were at the original forefront of fighting the hated poll tax. It was them who energised the early campaign that led too it's abandonment. It doesn't mean you had to agree with their full swathe of policies. Some common ground has to be found at time in my opinion Kosh. A means to an end!

Tony Benn would certainly disagree. Benn was one of the very few MP's to actively fight and testify against Galloway's expulsion from the Labour Party. He and Galloway have worked closely together as President and vice-president of the Stop the War Coalition for over a decade, sharing platforms at scores of meetings. He's also been a regular contributor to Galloway's talkshows.

True, Benn doesn't have Galloway's ego, but anyone who's seen his one-man show would know that he's not shy at garnering the limelight every now and then.

Workers. They voted to strike to defend their editor who was being sacked on utterly trumped up grounds (as later proven).

Being a right-on lefty I'd expect this to be all you needed to know.

But just to fill in a tad more, the self-described CEO wanted to replace the aforementioned editor with her son in law. He was being backed by Socialist Action – and was, indeed, a 'former' member of that group (which doesn't exist and therefore nobody is ever a member of it). Over a number of years, the CEO and a couple of her family had managed to get assorted SA types on the management committee in order to pave the way for the sacking/coup.

SA it was, which also organised for their puppet, Ken Livingstone to use Parliamentary privilege to threaten to put down an EDM that would libel my member, thus meaning that an EDM calling for the management to go to ACAS was withdrawn. We had the support of the likes of Tony Benn and Jeremy Corbyn and assorted others – and pretty much every trades union in the UK.



See above. But I've also seen assorted other Trots/Trot groups in action – and they don't give a toss about ordinary union members, for instance. They'll try to stall negotiated settlements that would really make a massive difference to low-paid workers – but hey, it would be so much better to train them in 'struggle' by having a strike than their lives improving.

In the above case, I'm particularly thinking of members of the Socialist Party.



Yet until a split in 2007 (two years after Galloway was elected in Tower Hamlets), Respect's supporters included the SWP (some stuff [url=http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=396"here[/url).

And it continues to have the support of the Socialist Unity Network, the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist), the Muslim Association of Britain and the Muslim Council of Britain.



See my comments above. I have direct experience of various Trotskyist groups behaving in an entryist manner. The parliamentary Labour Party is far from the only thing various such groups would like to control.

Oh, you've nothing to apologise for. We all get feisty when it comes to politics at least – and that's probably a good thing.



Oh, he has the oratory and the rhetoric that does inspire, yes. There's no doubt about that.

I'd also agree that the issues of Iraq and Afghanistan (and others) continue to haunt Labour – and rightly so (you know my views on those wars).

And it's quite clear that Labour has not worked out how on earth to connect/reconnect with the electorate and, in particular, the more traditional working class.

The Bradford West result was a rejection of a number of things and, I think, most of it is utterly understandable.

But that doesn't mean that Galloway is somehow a paragon of political virtue, so to speak. Or that there are not – and have not been in the past – some unsavoury aspects to his campaigning and to his willingness to pander to fundamentalists.

Personally, I also see that as being of concern for more than one reason. First – and most obviously – because it is about what divides people rather than what unites them.

And second, such campaigning has no place in progressive politics; it is utterly irresponsible – not least at a time when we see growing numbers of candidates standing for election on the basis of their religion, together with increasing demands being made by religious groups/individuals from across the faith spectrum for their 'rights' (which usually mean being allowed to discriminate against others) and, more generally, for religion to play a greater role in society as a whole.

It is not hearsay. It was reported quite widely at the time, in a wide range of media.



I am entirely happy to say that Galloway has railed against many things. He's also used such matters as political footballs when it suits him. Which brings into question how seriously he actually views them – perhaps simply not as important as his own political position?



I come from a strict religious background (with Plymouth Brethren in the picture). Some of us manage to get over it – or at least not continue with the same baggage that our parents and families foisted on us.

But this doesn't explain his dismal record as an MP for Tower Hamlets. There were plenty of reasons Respect didn't get re-elected, even given Labour's own record. The Big Brother farce was just one aspect of that – although it did shock many in communities that are, largely, very conservative.

But his celebrity tours around the world didn't earn him many brownie points either – especially when it left the electorate without their MP representing their interests in Parliament at times when issues of particular relevance were being discussed. The impact of Crossrail is a specific case in point.

What sort of campaining are you referring to? Surely, an MP should strive to represent his / her constituents. If the majority of those have one set of values they are the ones they want their MP to reflect.

I'm not a member of a Trotskyite organisation but I think your obvious bile towards them clouds your judgment.
It is IMO a big mistake to conflate the ideas and actions of all these (mainly tiny) groups together, just as it is a mistake to caricature them in the way you do.
I agree there is a big problem in terms of some parties putting their own interests before those of the working class (particularly in the case of the SP) but there is also much good work done by members of Trot groupings, without which (for example) the Anti-Nazi League and Stop the War Coalition would probably never have existed. None of them are as self-serving as any of the mainstream parties, all of whom have the power and the apparent willingness to break strikes regularly and on a massive scale.

Yes, Respect did enjoy the support of the SWP. Given that it was founded to give political expression to the anti-war movement, itself led by Galloway, Benn and the SWP this is quite understandable.
The groups you mention as members of Respect now however, are barely influential within it.

The RCPBML by the way can hardly be described as a Trot organisation. Some of their members still believe that Trotsky was an FBI agent. Believe me they hate Trots even more than you do!
...and why you add MAB and MCB to the list is totally baffling.
Socialist Unity I can understand, but at the end of the day they are little more than a web discussion group.

I can totally understand your anger if you were turned over by a particular Trot grouping, but I think your sweeping generalisations about all Trots do them and yourself a big disservice.

The bile is based on experience.



Even small groups can do incredible damage.



I've worked with the likes of Show Racism the Red Card – which is (if you could characterise it in such a way) 'soft Trot' and I have no problem with people like that. Ged and co are straightforward and decent. But again, in terms of my own experience, they're in the minority.



And yet some of the stuff that is being said about the campaign in Bradford suggests otherwise. Or perhaps there are other groups involved that would have inspired such campaigning angles – or perhaps no groups are needed and that was the candidates decision all on his own.



I didn't say it was – any more than some of the other organisations mentioned. What I was trying to illustrate was that the SWP were an important part of the organisation at that stage, along with a variety of other groups, including ones that were simply outright and others that may well explain the campaign's pandering to certain fundamentalists.



As I've tried to illustrate, it's been more than one such grouping that I've seen in pretty close action, so to speak.

If you stand as a Tory candidate, you don't espouse communist economic ideas because it might appeal to some constituents.

Likewise, if you stand on for supposedly progressive party, you do not pander to religious fundamentalists because there happen to be a few on the electoral register.

So have I. The difference is you appear to have only seen the worst.
I've seen good and bad things from all sorts; mainstream, Trots and old Stalinists alike. I've also seen non-aligned lefties caucussing in a more sectarian manner than anyone could imagine.
On these questions we wilol probably have to agree to disagree.

Bottom line for me is, regardless of his many faults, Galloway's result represents a shift in the public consciousness away from the mainstream concensus over war and austerity. That at least is in my view both progressive and refreshing.

Fair enough.

On a considerably lighter note, some years ago, I was working in an office where we had one raving Trot and one raving Tankie. They got on remarkably well, under the circumstances, but sometimes little theological spats would break out. They were unified in disgust, though, the day I labeled them Snowball and Napoleon.

The rest of the office thought it hilarious.



It remains to be seen, though, whether it will carry over into any other area/election – or whether it will occur when there is no 'celebrity' candidate standing.

You amuse me!

A Tory candidate would not pander to a few commie consituents but GG had to pander to a large and growing Muslim community in Blackburn (sic).

And your complete inability to actually understand a fairly simple argument amuses me.