After The James Murdoch Storm Came the Calm (Well Sort of)

Rupert Murdoch's evidence to the Leveson Inquiry today was either a bit of damp squib, or Rupert Murdoch is playing "mind games", if it is the latter then I hope Leveson does not allow him to get away with it.

Murdoch appears slighted when he spoke of a telephone conversation with Gordon Brown, where Brown apparently "attacked him" for announcing that the Sun was switching allegiance to the Tories, Murdoch narrated this conversation word for word, even told of the low tone that conversation took place in, a bit odd really when in the next breath he said that he couldn't remember when that telephone conversation took place, whether it was on the day of  Brown's speech to the Labour party conference, or when it actually was. Murdoch seems to suffer from a strange form senile dementia that only seems to affect him when he is giving his evidence under oath.

Mr Murdoch claimed the then PM said: 

"Well, your company has declared war on my government and we have no alternative but to make war on your company."

But Mr Brown said that Mr Murdoch's claim about him "declaring war" on News Corporation was "wholly wrong" and called on the media mogul to retract his "serious allegation".

The News Corp boss told the inquiry the ex-PM was not in a "balanced state of mind" when he made the call.

But Mr Brown said he had not phoned, met with or written to the News Corp chief over the Sun's decision to switch support back to the Conservatives.

He added that he hoped "Mr Murdoch will have the good grace to correct his account," when he resumes giving evidence to the inquiry on Thursday.

Now the truth about what brown really said and when he said it, which proves that Rupert Murdoch is lying:

When Brown heard about his taped phone call, he was not angry with the mother, but he was very angry with The Sun. Rupert Murdoch personally intervened to try and repair relations between the government and News International and told Brown in a phone call on 22 November that he thought the paper was 'wrong to publish the Janes story'. The tone of the conversation between the two was described as 'warm'. Brown said: 'Rupert you know I respect you and hold you in the highest regard. You know that I have never criticised you personally, and I have never let my people criticise you personally, but your people in London are making a great mistake. You've got to sort them out'. 'I hear you' replied the media mogul 'and I want to apologise.' Those who observed the two men together were often struck by their similarities: 'they were both outsiders, both from a long line of Scottish Presbyterian stock, they valued hard work, they both operated on the basis of knowing more than others, and they both had a phenomenal drive to win' says one. On the call they disagreed only on Brown's claim that The Sun's campaign was 'undermining our mission in Afghanistan'. The atmosphere of the conversation then began to deteriorate when Murdoch pleaded with the Prime Minister three times to speak to Rebekah Brooks, who was also on the line. 'I have no interest in speaking to the woman who is persecuting me' said Brown stubbornly. After more pressure from Murdoch he finally conceded. During a very tense conversation Brown raged: 'How dare you do this to me!' A breathless Brooks tried to deny she had anything 'to do with the headline' and claimed that she had been on holiday when the decision to run the story was taken. 'I know you're lying to me' Brown yelled and slammed the phone down. It would be the last time the two spoke. The New Statesman

If Rupert Murdoch is capable of making things like this up knowing that they will cause a furore, knowing they will cause harm and distress and if he is capable displaying convenient bouts of  "amnesia" then his credibility as a witness must come under serious scrutiny by Leveson and Murdoch shows that he does not respect this country, or our laws or the Leveson inquiry, but most of it shows quite clearly that he cannot be trusted to tell the truth and give a true account of what has been happening within his company.

Gordon Brown and his wife Sarah had every good reason to feel aggrieved with Rupert Murdoch, let's not forget that in October 2006, Rebekah Brooks the then editor of the Sun telephoned Gordon and Sarah brown and informed them that they had obtained their son's medical records and were going to publish them.

Rupert Murdoch has spoken of the regret he feels that the friendship he had with the Browns broke down, well with friends like that who needs enemies?

For all Murdoch's bluff and bluster, he is still just a nasty unpleasant man who uses people for his own ends and Leveson should be aware of this when questioning resumes. Leveson also needs to question Murdoch further about this mysterious phone conversation which Gordon Brown completely denies ever took place, if he doesn't, then this could be the subject of yet another legal battle. Perhaps Murdoch's memory is playing him up again and he has "forgotten" that at the time of this alleged phone call that Mr Brown was said to have made, Brown was still PM and I would think that phone records can easily be checked!

Even now there could be more skulduggery going on behind the scenes, even now at this late stage Murdoch could be promised BSkyB, after all at 81 he's getting on a bit and who would question his sudden convenient lapses of memory and concentration each time he is asked a particularly difficult question? To try and have us believe that he never discussed Andy Coulson with David Cameron is just astonishing, especially when you consider how "fond" Murdoch is of Rebekah Brooks and their exceptionally close relationship and at the time Brooks was almost joined at the hip to Andy Coulson.

Murdoch's claim that he never discussed the BSkyB bid with David Cameron is another eyebrow raiser. His son James Murdoch makes no secret of the fact that he wanted BSkyB badly, Murdoch makes no secret of the fact that James and Brooks persuaded him to to switch support back to the Tories. Strangely this all happened around the time that:

Jeremy Hunt spent five days in the US, holding meetings with News Corporation when Rupert and James Murdoch were first deciding whether to bid for Sky, official documents reveal.Almost immediately after Hunt's trip, James Murdoch visited David Cameron in London, and privately told him that News Corp had agreed to switch its support to the Tories in the upcoming election. Hunt then became culture secretary in the victorious Tory government.Hunt's officials at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport declined to comment on what Hunt had been doing at News Corp's headquarters in August 2009, a visit disclosed in the register of members' interests later that year. The Guardian

Rupert Murdoch needs to be questioned in far more detail than he has been to date and if his memory is that unreliable then officials in the Leveson Inquiry must be given all relevant information and records.

I thought Rupert Murdoch had more balls than the cowardly performance he put on in Leveson yesterday, he knows all about David Cameron and George Osborne and if he was really sorry for what his papers did he would disclose that information and he should remember, this is his chance, if he doesn't disclose, it will find him out, the truth will come out, I would have thought the last year or so would have taught him this at least, if nothing else!

Why should we believe a single thing Rupert or James Murdoch have said or will say in the future?

Are Dodgy Dave and "Master Strategist" George Osborne Still Laughing?

Are They Still Laughing?

The Tories are all of a quandary they don't know what to do since George Osborne the so-called "master strategist" completely out of the 'blue' flung the cat among the Tory pigeons with his "pretendy" plans to force all cabinet ministers and MPs to reveal their tax details.  I think Osborne's strategy was to lob this ball into the court of the Labour party and the Labour party were then supposed shriek in horror and run scared, only they didn't, (yet another master Osborne strategy bites the dust) and this morning on BBC's "Not the Andrew Marr Show" Labour's Shadow Business Secretary, Chuka Umunna, knocked the ball firmly back into Osborne's and the government's court where it dead bounced and rolled into a corner when he said; Labour will be happy to comply and show tax details.

Now something tells me a few in the cabinet and some Tory MPs (and Liberal Democrat ones too) have suddenly got an attack of "squeaky bum time" (and it isn't the winter vomiting bug either!) They are probably worrying about their off shore accounts etc watch this Ch 4 Dispatches programme on How The Rich beat the Taxman. The Cayman Islands and other little safe haven jaunts and those who suddenly transferred all their funds into a spouse's name Mr Phillip Hammond Tory defence Secretary! Andrew Mitchell the International Development Secretary, invested funds in a network of privately owned firms which is now at the centre of a tax avoidance case.  And not forgetting the Tory Chancellor and "master strategist" himself, who apparently is not averse to a little "creative accounting when it comes to saving himself a whopping £1.6 million in inheritance tax!  George Osborne likes to say "we're all in this together." But a while back Channel 4 revealed that he's avoiding paying tax. He pays accountants to help him find loopholes which Channel 4 reckon will help him dodge £1.6million. These kind of "legal tax dodges" cost the rest of us billions.
How can we trust George Osborne to do all he can to close tax loopholes when he uses the loopholes himself?




Not forgetting either that George Osborne also allowed Vodafone off of paying a staggering £6 BILLION it owed the British Treasury in back tax!

At the same time through Osborne's incompetent management of the economy small businesses who are literally clinging on by the skin of their teeth and struggling to survive he has instructed HMRC to hound them within an inch of their lives, threatening them with bankruptcies and foreclosures. No leniency shown to these people, still let that be a lesson to them they should aim to owe billions then they will get a personal pardon from the Tory Chancellor himself. However, I suppose George has to do something to make up the non payment of the billions of pounds in tax from multinational companies who he has granted a tax amnesty, but "we're all in this together" right? (Well George and his multinational businessmen mates are any way)

Not to mention all those on the Tory front bench who benefit from the new 45p tax rate set to save a nice little £42,000 each! And where has Tory peer Lord Ashcroft disappeared to? He is rather silent on the issue, perhaps I am being a tad harsh on the billionaire and he has just popped off to have a little Easter break in Belize to see how his little multi million tax dodges are coming along? I bet there are a few in the Tory party who would like to tell George Osborne what to do with his "master strategies" but they sound too brutal to repeat here!

Of course this is proving to be yet another cock-up of monumental proportions. Keep going Gideon you are doing a fine job - George Osborne, Conservative Chancellor and "Master Strategist". Thinking about it though perhaps we should all have sympathy for the "poor overworked" stressed chancellor as it is affecting his memory poor lamb, when he was asked if his new 45p tax rate will benefit him he said no his minister's salary is £134,565 under the threshold, he obviously forgot all about his little earner letting his swish luxurious £2 million pad netting him around £153,000 per year and his 10% share in the family's wallpaper business, on top of which he will eventually inherit £4 million from.

However, I think it would be grossly unfair of me not to mention that as far as "cock-ups" are concerned, Gideon does have stiff competition from the "Minister for Panic", Francis [jerry can] Maude, who has waded into the tax argument pronouncing that  the Coalition wanted to make Britain a place where wealthy foreigners came to avoid paying high tax was “a compliment"! Maude obviously thinks this fits in perfectly now Prime Minister, David Cameron has given his assent to the City of London to be "officially" known as the "money laundering capital of the world! (Max Hastings is now a Conservative supporter) 

We shouldn't forget either that hidden in the chancellor's budget was not only the fact that he is robbing the NHS and pensioners in order to pay for the new 45p tax rate reduction, the "master strategist" has decided to drag 300,000 more workers into the 40p tax rate by lowering their personal tax allowances (and not announce it) those workers will include nurses, teachers and police etc (who are already very unhappy with this government) and has refused to stop his planned 4p hike on a litre of fuel in August which is yet another blow to struggling motorists and families. It's a move that will further antagonise motorists and hauliers and will inevitably feed through into the supply chain and re stoke the fires of inflation further damaging jobs and growth. it's seems suicidal however, could the cunning "master strategist" have a plan to take the threat of his fuel rise right to the wire and then suddenly drop the policy to garner him praise? If so Theresa May's cat just escaped from the bag and we will be watching him and his political game playing   "master strategy" with the already very worried minds of the public!

Also in the "longest suicide note in history" George Osborne's Budget was Osborne's plans to limit the tax relief on giving and a " A powerful alliance of aid groups, charities and arts organisations is launching a full-frontal assault on Treasury plans to limit tax relief for philanthropists, warning that they will have a devastating impact on the culture of giving at the heart of David Cameron's "big society".

Which brings me neatly back to number 10, where  Dodgy Dave is feeling the pressure from a few weeks of bad Tory press where his plan for deliberately panicking the public over fuel "master strategy" was quickly twigged and he has been racking his brain cell to come up with a "master strategy" of his own to make the Tory supporting press write "nice" things about him again. He tried another relaunch of his Big Society which was not only scuppered by his own chancellor's plans to lower tax relief on giving, but was met with the news that most people thought his Big Society was a "Big Con" anyway,just ask the Mirror's Fiona Phillips who maintains that "Care for society's most vulnerable is being taken apart. I don't see anything 'big' about that"!  When that failed he had to fire his brain up again (hopefully away from fuel vapours in his kitchen!) and he suddenly got it, as quick as a flash[man] he got on the phone to Theresa May, all the while praying that her cat hadn't still got her tongue and ordered her to come up with a new form of immigrant bashing PDQ, after all, Dodgy Dave reasoning was that "immigrant bashing" has always gone down favourably in the Tory supporting press in the past and I have previously pointed out, we can always tell when the government is in trouble, they start and attack on immigrants, single mothers, the unemployed and the disabled, in fact any disadvantage group, so people beware, the government is look for people to scapegoat in order to get itself out of trouble!

So here we have Dave's "master strategy" a quickly rehashed *old* plan from a few weeks ago, should be good for a few days of baby fascist type coverage in the Tory supporting press and the newly signed up "TBC" (Tory Broadcasting Corporation previously known as the BBC). However, Cameron should not hold his breath too long (or yet again perhaps he should) because the teachers are not happy, the hauliers are not happy, the motorists are not happy but the petrol tanker drives look like they may well have successful talks, making Cameron's attack on the unions and deliberately panicking the entire country causing serious injury and causing long queues and traffic chaos on major roads and  fights to break out of garage forecourts all over the country look even more idiotic (if that is possible) and to top all of that (and not  forgetting ("pastygate") the MPs select committee is due to report at the end of this month which could very well end up implicating David Cameron in the phone hacking scandal alongside the Murdochs and then there is dear old Rupe! And let me tell you, Rupe is not very happy with his former mate Dodgy Dave (truth be known he never really did like him anyway).

Question is what is occurring in "Murdoch Land"? They seem to be squaring up for a fight with David Cameron. Their attacks on him are beginning to look coordinated! Could it possibly be that "dear old Rupe" feels mightily affronted by Dodgy Dave's attitude towards him and did not much care for the way in which Dodgy Dave dumped all over him as soon as the political heat was turned up during the phone hacking scandal select committee hearings?

The Sun's Trevor Kavanagh has been shedding his "bleeding heart" all over the place, he is not happy with Rupe and Rupe is not happy with Dodgy Dave, where is all of this going to end? A word for Trev though, when mentioning "freedom of speech" he may like to have a word with the government he recommended we elect, they are not only taking away freedom of speech, they are riding roughshod over people's human rights. civil rights and workers rights, taking away legal aid which will render poor helpless and are generally terrifying disabled people, terminally ill people, the unemployed, women and the most vulnerable in society. After all  Dodgy Dave called on the Sun to do his dodgy 'divide & rule tactics and the Sun obliged by inferring that everyone on benefits, genuine or not is some kind of cheating defrauding scrounging scum, the fact that genuine benefit fraud is but a mere drop in the c ocean compared to cameron's mates dodgy tax dealings doesn't seem to resonate with the editor at the Sun. We have a prime minister acting like some kind of civilian Augusto Pinochet on speed and Kavanagh, the Murdochs and the Sun helped put him there!

Could it be that "dear old Rupe" has finally had an attack of conscience as he sits in the lap of luxury, flies about in his luxury jet while job seekers are forced to work for nothing and the disabled and terminally ill who are judged to have longer than 6 months to live are forced to work for nothing indefinitely under the guise of "work experience"?  The only people this is really benefiting are those multinational companies who get to have taxpayer funded free labour, it seems beyond the Sun's reasoning that if these places have real and proper jobs then hey should be hiring people properly, a fair day's pay for a fair day's work and NOT sponging off the state getting a huge chunk of their payroll paid by the taxpayer! It also beyond the Sun's comprehension to realise that this country cannot function on "fully trained managerial grocers and burger flippers alone" we need proper jobs across the spectrum.

Back to Dodgy Dave though, could it be that Rupe is giving Dave a a lesson in loyalty that will culminate in him silently issuing an ultimatum? Do Rupe and James still hold out hope of getting their ultimate prize of buying up the rest of the 60% of BSkyB? Will they say to Dodgy it's BSkyB or else we "publish and be damned? What will Dave be left with if the publish? A reputation in even more tatters than it is now and absolutely no hope of another "big job" abroad? Or face the public backlash for allowing the BSkyB merger after all but retain some of his reputation?

"The forthcoming report by the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee into the allegations of phone hacking would only increase the pressure on him as chairman. Then there was his appearance, at around the same time and alongside his father, at the Leveson Inquiry into media standards and the relationship between the industry and politicians, up to and including the Prime Minister.Both could happen in the final week of April – a perfect storm Murdoch feared he would not survive."

And here is something that should chill the heart of the Sun's editor, Trevor Kavanagh, Sun staff and the Times and Sunday Times:

With Mockridge and Murdoch on the BSkyB board, close observers of the situation also say that another attempt by News Corp to buy the 60pc of BSkyB it does not already own cannot be ruled out – particularly if News Corp spins out the UK newspaper business. The Telegraph

The Murdochs are likely to do this with or without acquiring BSkyB and if it is without acquiring BSKB Dodgy Dave can expect some fireworks equivalent of New Years Eve Embankment, I believe there is much to come out about Cameron and Osborne's use of the media and their involvement with the whole phone hacking scandal, I mean how did the Tories get hold of copies of private emails and private telephone conversations of Cherie Blair, and later Gordon Brown etc which they used to prime the media with?

Cameron and Tory Led Government Fail In Their Duty of Care Towards The Public

Does My Brain Look Small In This?

First of all ministers of the Tory led government told the BBC that they were holding a meeting to discuss the tankers drivers "strike" they said it was not a COBRA meeting, then a little later David Cameron said  it was a COBRA meeting. They should make their mind up but it gets worse - much worse!

They then held the "COBRA" meeting (that may not have been a proper COBRA meeting) to discuss and plan for an emergency that actually wasn't an emergency. So why did they hold a COBRA meeting in the first place? Was this the first step of their plan designed to fool the public into thinking there was a real emergency? If it was a real COBRA meeting then why weren't representatives from any of the petroleum industry present? Surely if this meeting really was about planning contingencies during a real  tanker drivers strike then people from the petroleum industry, whose expert knowledge would be crucial to help with the planning, should have been present?

When ministers emerged from that sham meeting, the PM and cabinet Minister Francis Maude had already decided to panic the entire nation by talking up a strike that was probably never going to happen deliberately causing mayhem and panic by giving the impression that a strike was imminent, and that everybody should top up with fuel and keep fuel stored in jerry cans in the garage as a "sensible precaution"! This was the start of a whole series of conflicting advice this incompetent Tory government were to give to the public over a few days.

On the first day after Francis Maude made his now infamous comments about  jerry cans, David Cameron was asked by the Fire Service union to retract the statement because the advice was wrong and extremely dangerous, Cameron was asked to make a formal statement saying it was dangerous to store fuel, however, Cameron refused to backtrack and as a direct result of the Tory PM's appalling handling of this manufactured crisis, a lady from York decided to decant fuel in her kitchen and managed to set herself alight, she now has 40% burns to her body and is in a critical condition in hospital.

In the end it was down to the unions to try and calm the public and they sensibly ruled out a strike before Easter with  a panicking Cameron trying to take the credit by asking them to accept the offer from ACAS to get around the table. Too late it had already been arranged without any input from the prime minister!

When the possibility of a strike first became known, instead of acting swiftly in the national interest as any half decent responsible PM would do by taking action to try and get all parties around the table to avert a strike, he decided instead to try and play hard ball with the unions in order to make himself look big, clever and hard. What we saw last week was the actions of arrogance self interest and deliberately misleading of the public which has been the hallmark of Cameron ever since he assumed office. Here was the government deliberately playing up the remote possibility of a strike and playing politics with peoples lives and as a result of their breathtaking arrogance and incompetence, fights and queues and fuel shortages took hold on garage forecourts all over the country and one woman ended up fighting for her life with 40% burns to her body.

The UK Petroleum Industry Association described fuel crisis as "self-inflicted insanity" in a leaked email to the Department of Energy, and I have to agree with them, what we have seen is government incompetence and manipulation and deliberate misleading of the public on a breathtaking scale, and the gross negligence and a failure in their duty of care towards the nation and it is unforgivable!

However, it doesn't even end there, because of Cameron's panic-mongering creating a run on fuel, our emergency service vehicles are now running low on fuel and just to cap the weeks utter madness, dozy incompetent Cameron has ordered the rules on fuel tanker drivers' hours have been temporarily relaxed to help the transport of supplies to filling stations and this is as a direct result of the panic he and his government *deliberately* caused.

Under EU rules, drivers are limited to nine hours on the road each day, but this has now been raised to 11 hours.

I don't suppose it has yet occurred to Cameron that tanker driver hours are limited for a reason and that reason is because they are driving around massive unexploded bombs and they need all their concentration to keep the public, themselves and their loads safe?
It seems ironical that the strike ballot is about safety standards and terms and conditions, not about pay, and also say that shorter delivery deadlines have created a "turn and burn" culture, and now the government have exacerbated the very reason why tanker drivers were threatening to strike in the first place.


 You couldn't make all this up really! Especially when you take into consideration that this whole panic was deliberately instigated by David Cameron trying to emulate Margaret Thatcher and Tory MPs were instructed to advise their constituents to stock pile fuel in order to get enough so no one need it which they thought would help shift the blame for their own deliberate panic mongering onto the unions and the Labour party. The Tories were actually playing politics to divert attention away from government incompetence and shift the blame for the crisis onto the unions and the Labour party, it is totally and utterly absurd and probably breaks parliamentary standards.


However, what is really telling is that we have a government prepared to go to any lengths, play any political game at any particular time and make fools of the people in order to cover their own incompetence up over a whole raft of hideous policies and stories; 50p tax reduction for millionaires paid for by a granny tax, secretly introducing VAT on hot food, the destruction of the nations NHS, Cash for access to Cameron, Cash for policy etc, but to deliberately endanger the lives and the smooth running of the country for political gain defies words and beggars belief! This government is not fit to govern and Cameron, Osborne, Clegg, Maude and Lansley et al are not fit to hold high office!





The actions of this government are now coming to the fore and revealing real corruption and spivvery at the very heart of David Cameron's government.
The country is gripped by real crisis entirely of the the government's making, a government who should be doing all it can to protect us, regardless of their narrow party interests, instead they were knowingly putting us at serious risk. If this is the kind of panic and complete muddle they get themselves into over a small threat of a petrol tankers strike, it does not bode well for when this country is faced with real danger from terrorist attack, or another banking collapse? If this happens what is the government going to do? Fall to pieces? Start a panic? Look how long it took Cameron to decide his job was back here and not swanning about on his fifth foreign holiday of last year not having his photo opportunities with a Tuscan waitress when the country was faced with riots, looting, plundering, murder and arson and where peoples homes shops and livelihoods were wantonly being destroyed and pictures of the country burning were being beamed around the world.  For days we had absolutely no leadership because the entire cabinet, (even the Deputy PM who is meant to stand in for the PM when he is out of the country) barring Hague who made one statement and then scuttled off to his summer residence and ignored what was going on, were all out of the country at exactly the same time! It took Cameron 3 whole days to return and take charge and when he did eventually return he immediately started to blame the police and everyone else for his own ineptitude and serious serial lack of judgement!


Politics is not a game it affects real people and their lives and last week this government put our lives at serious risk as badly burnt Diane Hill and her family will testify, these are people who have been left in unimaginable pain, suffering and distress because of insane advice deliberately given in order to cause panic by this Conservative government and its Liberal Democrat hanger on poodles.


This government is a serious danger to the public and they need to be replaced as soon as possible before they harm even more of our people, our industry and our economy.


Now is the time for Mr Miliband to show the country that Labour is a credible, sensible alternative. Labour was not to blame for the global economic crisis, even the IMF now admit that and even at the height of 2008 global recession labour's debt was lower than the Tories in 1997 the Conservative government left a deficit of 3.9% and no global crises, in 2007 deficit was 2.1% but exacerbated by a global bank crises here is the proof. - Labour should remind people that Labour handed this country's economy over with 1.1% for just one quarter, falling unemployment and manufacturing doing well despite the worse global recession for over a 100 years and now just 22 months later Osborne has totally ruined the country's economy and we are now in recession again and we need Labour back to sort the mess out -  Miliband should not be afraid to show it - it's time for Ed Miliband to step up, he is more of a statesman now than Dodgy Dave Cameron can ever ever hope to be.

Why Labour Must Seize Back the Initiative from George Galloway

It must be said that the shock result of the Bradford West by-election gave Labour who previously held the seat not only a bloody nose, but a fat lip and two black eyes as well. However, let's try not get it out of proportion as there were other serious factors at play here which I will go on to explain. We should not forget either that the Conservative party who actually had Bradford West on their "hit list" of marginals in 2010, also got a bloody nose and the Liberal Democrats who have been ultra quiet on the subject lost their deposit. The turnout for the poll was 50% the fourth lowest in Bradford voting history.

I don't think that the people of Bradford West yet fully realise just what it is they have elected in George Galloway, but just like Bethnal Green and Bow before them I believe they will soon start to feel stirrings of misgivings.

Maybe they should watch these two cringe worthy video clips, both scenes from TV's Celebrity Big Brother starring George Galloway, he may not drink alcohol but he hasn't let that stop him prancing around in a red Lycra catsuit on national TV and purring into Rula Lenska's lap like a huge "fat cat". Once they have viewed them maybe they should ask themselves how close this man on the videos is to the man they thought they were electing as their MP? And ask themselves if they would have still voted for him if the Labour party had played a dirty tricks a campaign like George Galloway did and flooded Asian homes with this kind information?

In the aftermath of the poll the usual political pundits lined up to give us the benefit of their wisdom and  after a bruising week for the Tories we saw the Tory supporting TV presenters report Labour's little "local difficulty" with glee, nothing remarkable there, except they were as usual not reporting the entire story, instead, we got the now predictable response "questions being asked about Ed Miliband's leadership", except they were not, no questions were being asked about Ed Miliband's leadership because the loss of this constituency to George Galloway was a phenomena and is the exception to the rule, but as usual where Labour is concerned TV reporters, especially the BBC and Sky News will never let the truth get in the way of their Labour bashing pro government stories.

There is absolutely no denying that the Labour campaign was at fault by treating George Galloway and Respect like any other minor party and I find it absolutely astonishing that they failed to study the phenomena that took him to victory in Bethnal Green, if they had they would have realised that just like Bethnal Green before them the Bradford West seat had many of the ingredients for another major political upset. They should have informed Bradford West voters that the reason why Galloway did not stand for re-election in his former constituency of Bethnal Green and Bow was because he was a yellow livered coward and knew he would lose so stood in the neighbouring seat of Poplar and Limehouse instead! They should have explained the reasons why Galloway plays "musical constituencies", in fact it was their duty to warn Bradford West voters and they failed, they need to bear this in mind for the next election.

Galloway also lost his job as a presenter on Talk Sport Radio where he was a regular controversial figure and would regularly insult and humiliate people who disagreed with him. No doubt he was forewarned of his impending fate at the radio station and could have been at a loose end and another key reason why he decided to stand for election in Bradford West.

I have no doubt that altruism never plays a part in the actions of George Galloway - ever. Whatever George Galloway does, George Galloway does for himself, one word sums him up - "narcissistic". Galloway flaunts around a predominately Muslim area using terms like "Bradford Spring", this alone should tell people what this man is really about. Everything is about him, himself and he, he doesn't want to know about what he can do for the people of Bradford West, he is all about taking what the people of Bradford West can do for George Galloway. It is what he is going to stir up by using emotive terms like "Bradford Spring" that should be a cause for concern to every single rational person in this country and not just residents of Bradford West, especially when he is also talking about the riots of summer 2011 - it's truly frightening.

Since last Friday, I have heard and read some comments from people in Bradford West who seem to believe that Galloway is some kind of knight in shining armour riding in to save them all on his trusted steed. I almost feel sorry for them because unfortunately, I think they are going to be very disappointed! First they should ask themselves just what one lone MP can do for them?  Secondly they should perhaps study what he did for the people of Bethnal Green in Tower Hamlets, which wasn't much at all, he wasn't even there most of the time, he was always off pursuing his causes célèbre, especially when he appeared in TV's celebrity Big Brother, he was away from his constituency for weeks which mean they did not have an MP to turn to should they needed his help. He was out of the country a lot too, he was out of the country so much at one point that in Westminster he was dubbed the "Member for Baghdad"! Here is an official list of dates he was out of the country while he was a Labour MP (he was expelled from the party in 2003) List of Mr George Galloway's entries in the Register of Members' Interests relating to Iraq between 1991 and 2005 People should not take my word for George Galloway's disinterest in representing his constituents in parliament, they should should take a look at the official figures. Between May 2005 when he was first elected to represent Bethnal Green and Bow and when he stood down in May 2010, out of a possible 1288 chances to vote, George Galloway only managed to vote 98 times. Bearing in mind his constituency was a London constituency a virtual stones throw away from Westminster, doesn't bode well for Bradford West really does it? Look at his voting figures MP for Glasgow Kelvin after he was expelled from the Labour party, between October 2003 and April 2005 out of  a possible 549 opportunities to represent his constituency in Parliament he only managed to vote 19 times. As the link I have included above shows, George Galloway was out of the country most of time yet still taking his salary as a constituency MP.


Unsurprisingly, it did not take long before his popularity started to wane in Bethnal Green and Bow. In 2010 instead of standing again or standing down in his own constituency like most sitting MPs would, extraordinarily, Galloway stood for election in the neighbouring Poplar and Limehouse seat which he subsequently lost.


Reports from the Bangladesh community in Poplar & Limehouse say that on the morning of the 2010 general election the police were were called to a polling station in the Ben Johnson primary school in St Dunstans in Poplar, after voters reported they were being shouted at and intimidated in the street by George Galloway's Respect party campaigners, demanding that everyone vote for Respect. This was also happening in the Bethnal Green and Bow constituency, where Abjol Miah supporters were said to have been harassing voters into voting for him or suffer the consequences if the Liberal Democrat candidate Ajmal Masoor wins, in any event neither Respect or Liberal democrats won the poll, it was Jim Fitzpatrick who won the seat for the Labour party.  It is actually illegal for anyone to campaign on the day of an election within a certain radius of a polling station, but staying within the confines of law doesn't worry Respect campaigners apparently.

Voter fraud in the postal voting system in Tower Hamlets has also been investigated by the police, giving rise to suspicion that over 5000 ghost voters had registered for postal votes and that as a consequence there were fears that Respect could take the seat, fortunately Rushanara Ali for Labour was elected. However, the Labour party wanting no part in voter fraud of misrepresentation had expelled Lutfur Rahman, the mayor of Tower Hamlets, from the Labour Party because of his links with an extremist Muslim group, the Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE) .   This is the same group that George Galloway has had supporting him in Bradford West, where the IFE has an active operation.

Bethnal Green has since returned to normal but many people still believe that George Galloway and his Respect party are a party of hate and division and will divide the Muslim and White communities.
Galloway did not even wait for the count in Poplar and Limehouse, defeated, he slunk off, only to pop up in Glasgow List in 2011 where he unsuccessfully stood for election to the Scottish Parliament where once again he was defeated, even his native Scots didn't want anything to do with him. Then he saw a chance of what he calls a "perfect fit" for his particular brand of politics emerge in in Bradford West by election and he seized his chance and this time managed to succeed in fooling most of the people most of the time. I can't help thinking that George Galloway could stir up and give a mighty kick to a  hornets nest of disquiet among fundamentalists groups and this fills me with fear for the people of Bradford West. Labour should have seen this coming for sure, but so too should the Tories and the Liberal Democrats who are supposed to  be the party of government. This is not just a shock for the Labour party, this is a rejection on a "Biblical scale" of the Tory-led coalition government politics, who have managed to make ordinary law abiding peaceful Muslims (who are the majority) feel disenfranchised with their random attacks on Muslims and immigration, attacks used every time the government felt they were slipping in the polls. Once again we see clearly David Cameron, Nick Clegg and George Osborne use naked politicking and the age old tactic of 'divide and rule' and play upon peoples fears for their own political advantage, we see it repeatedly, we saw it last week when the Tories used fuel to deliberately panic the nation in the hope of diverting attention from their total incompetence to govern this country correctly and fairly for all the people, not just the privileged few ( the elite,which they are all part of).


It is the arrogant measure of George Galloway, a man who abuses the trust one set of constituents, and then thinks he can do exactly the same in a neighbouring seat and no one will notice! He attempted to take the residents of Poplar and Limehouse for fools, fortunately they showed him they were nobody's fools, especially George Galloway's! Galloway's former Bethnal Green seat then returned to Labour in the 2010 general election. The people were wise to George Galloway and had learned about his antics with women and money and how he got his hands on the latter has always been questioned in parliament, here is an official letter requesting such information and a response for Galloway. The voters of Poplar & Limehouse also recoiled at his support for off the wall causes and weird personalities and saw right through him and elected a Labour MP. Galloway has always been a contentious figure however since being expelled from the Labour party he has become bitter and vengeful and has had a string of abject failures.

In January 2004, Galloway announced he would be working with members of the Social Alliance in England and Wales, and others, under the name Respect – The Unity Coalition, generally referred to simply as Respect. This was despite Galloway having a track record of antipathy toward Trotskyists, and the largest component of Respect being the Socialist Workers Party, which broadly identifies itself as part of the Trotskyist political tradition. But hey George Galloway can quickly skew anything and make everything about himself if it is in the interests of George Galloway. (As the people of "Blackburn" oops sorry Bradford West will soon be discovering for themselves.)

Labour in Bradford West should have informed voters that some former members of the Socialist Alliance, including the Workers Liberty and Workers Power groups, objected to forming a coalition with Galloway, citing his political record, and his refusal to accept an average worker's wage, with Galloway claiming "I couldn’t live on three workers’ wages." If he couldn't live on three workers wages, how out of touch is he with the people of hard hit Bradford West? If George Galloway was hardly ever in his Bethnal Green and Bow constituency in London, how often will he be in the constituency of Bradford West after the initial novelty of his victory has worn off?

Labour's Deputy leader Harriet Harman has said they believe that they lost the Bradford West by election in the last week when something happened to change the minds of voters who had previously pledged to vote Labour. Ms Harman could be right as this actually coincided with a hastily prepared leaflet that did not bear the Respect logo, or the names of an agent or printer which is required by electoral law. The leaflet was apparently flooded into all the Asian areas of the Bradford West constituency. Its allegations that Mr Hussain is a heavy drinker are totally false and libellous. Galloway has started of in his constituency in the usual Galloway way, he is already bandying threats about, threatening legal action over wrongs he feels were done to him, however, if he really wants to clean up politics as constituency MP for Bradford West he could ask the police to investigate who sent that libellous pro- George Galloway leaflet to thousands of homes, which broke the law covering elections. I suspect Galloway will do nothing though because when the law is broken that suits Galloway, that's OK.

It seems that Galloway boasts on his rallies and election literature about having respect for Muslims, but this respect dis not stretch to his Muslim opponent! Galloway's form of respect applies just as long as they do not disagree with him or stand against him in a democratic election and doesn't mind if his followers libel an innocent man and personally bring him down in his standing in his community, something that means a great deal to all Muslims. (Look at what happened to Muslims that opposed Galloway in Bethnal green and Bow and Poplar and Limehouse, they were abused and shouted at in the streets, women and young voters among them). If the leaflet wasn't put put out by Respect campaigners with or without George Galloway's knowledge then  who was it and why would they do such a thing? A police investigation must be started. the leaflet said:

"GOD KNOWS who is a Muslim. And he knows who is not, "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 the other candidate [the Labour candidate, Imran Hussein] in this election can say that truthfully. I, George Galloway, have fought for the Muslims at home and abroad, all my life, and paid the price for it. I, George Galloway, holds Pakistan's highest civil awards."

George Galloway stood in the Bradford West by election for the same reasons he stood in Bethnal Green and Poplar, because he has a festering grudge for Labour because they expelled him from the party, in my opinion, I don;t think he cares one jot for the people of Bradford west, whether they are Muslim, Christian or agnostic, he is just using them to get at the Labour party in his never ending grudge, which appears to have turned him into a nasty, deceitful and bitter human being.
He wasted no time in personally insulting Mr Hussain, who is by the way a Muslim too, pity the courtesies that Galloway says he has for all Muslims do not extend to Mr Hussain. Galloway told a rally that he was a "better Pakistani than he [Mr Hussain] will ever be. He also inferred that Mr Hussain was never out of the pub and because of that he shouldn't go around telling people to vote for him because he is a Muslim. This is the kind of dirty nasty unpleasant tricks that gets politics and politicians a bad name.

Galloway also shows disregard for all the hundreds of thousands of Muslims Saddam Hussein tortured, had raped, executed and murdered and thrown into mass graves and completely ignored what  Saddam did to Muslims in Halabja , where he murdered thousands of people using chemical warfare. Women laying dead in the street where they fell clutching their babies and children. Regardless of what you felt about the Iraq war how could Galloway associate himself with someone who butchered his own people, all Muslims? Doesn't this go against everything Muslims are taught in the Quaran? Galloway said to Saddam "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability" and later tried to explain that by saying he was "saluting the Iraqi people! A pretty odd way to salute people who were being regularly tortured, imprisoned or murdered, women and children among them raped and imprisoned in cages or ending up buried dead or alive in mass graves! I really do not know how this man manages to fool so many Muslims that he is on their side when patently the only side he is on is his own, George Galloway is a dangerous attention seeking narcissist. George Galloway maintains that he is the same as Muslims in effect that the only thing he fears is "Judgement day", the same as they and he says; "I'm ready for that", I hope he is, however he may find his particular "Judgement Day" may not be what he thinks it will be. Then again he could just be saying that to gain favour with his supporters, who knows what goes on in the murky depths of George Galloway's mind.

At another rally, Galloway talked again about divine judgement. Apparently he stands for justice and haqq (haqq is very important to Muslims, it stands for truth and righteousness). Using this Galloway told the crowd which was overwhelmingly a Muslim audience, that he believed for "religious reasons" in the same Judgement Day as they [the audience] did and then asked the crowd how they would explain on their Judgement Day that they had the chance, "on 29th March 2012, to vote for someone who led a "great campaign" against the slaughter of millions in Iraq, but instead voted for a party which has killed millions of Iraqis? As he mentioned that people should have an explanation for not voting for him [Galloway], perhaps he has a better excuse for his maker on his Judgement Day than saying he was saluting the Iraqi people when he was sucking up to Saddam Hussein & sons, the cold blooded butchers, murderers and torturers of millions of Muslims? The same family who shot the entire Iraqi football team because they lost a match!
What George Galloway appears to have done is tantamount to emotional blackmail and was deliberately trying to scare people into voting for him and if it isn't against electoral rules, then it should be, it is totally outrageous that Galloway has been allowed to get away with peddling this kind of hate and fear tactics. I truly believe that labour should lodge a complaint to the police and have Galloway and his Respect "followers" investigated. Even if it meant that if Galloway was found guilty and Labour were to lose another by election, it would still be doing what is right and proper under our democracy.

However, it has to be said that he had support from across the political spectrum or the Tories and the Lib Dems would not have lost votes either!  But Galloway has the ability to turn on the charm and be all things to all people, which is why he appealed across the board.  However, would those people have voted for George Galloway if they knew that Mr Galloway has some very useful allies in Yorkshire?

"At his main rally last Sunday, one of his supporting speakers was Abjol Miah, a leading activist in both Respect and the extremist Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE), which wants to create a sharia state in Europe."Mr Miah has been an important figure in the IFE’s ever-growing influence in the east London borough of Tower Hamlets. He had taken a key part in the election of Lutfur Rahman, thrown out of Labour for his links with the IFE, as mayor of Tower Hamlets.The IFE also played what Mr Galloway himself, in a secretly recorded tape, called “the decisive role” in his previous shock election victory, in Tower Hamlets in 2005. “I am indebted more than I can say to the Islamic Forum of Europe,” he said. The IFE also has an active operation in Bradford. Then there was the Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC), another radical group that campaigned against a Labour MP for being “Jewish” (she wasn’t, as it happened). It waded in strongly for Mr Galloway, repeating the baseless smears against Mr Hussain. “Thirsty Imran Hussain (hic) likes his refreshments,” smirked MPAC’s website. “And campaigning in this unseasonably good weather is thirsty work indeed … George Galloway is giving Hussain a real run for his money.” Mr Galloway, said MPAC, was a teetotaller, “a defender of Muslims and Bradford West’s last hope”.His links with radical Islam are real enough. As well as the IFE, he remains a presenter for the Iranian regime’s state-controlled Press TV channel. He has repeatedly praised and met the leaders of the banned Palestinian terrorist group, Hamas. The Telegraph

Since winning the by election Galloway is already demonstrating bizarre over the top behaviour by touring the City on an open topped bus and this should give all the ordinary people of Bradford West cause for concern. He is not a celebrity he is an MP and  he should act like one, he is in Bradford West (not "Blackburn") to do a serious job of work not indulge in unseemly triumphalism, where does this behaviour fit in with the  Qur'an?....especially over another Muslim who is after just a political opponant and a good, decent respectful man?

The election result should give us all serious cause for concern, including the incompetent out of touch Conservative led coalition government. Something stirred in Bradford West and it wasn't "Sleeping beauty", it was George Galloway and he is no beauty, he is an attention seeking, cigar smoking Fantasist who could give "Walter Mitty" a run for his money! Incidentally the cost of those revolting smelly big cigars he smokes could probably feed a whole family for a month and that is excluding the cost of the gallons of mouthwash he must get through trying to purify what is probably his fetid cigar smoking breath!

What happened in Bradford West was not only bad for the Labour party is was an out and out rejection of the Coalition government and their political game playing and their disgraceful harmful policies on all people and this to a lesser extent is the mood sweeping this country, one I have continually pointed to as slipping beneath the radar of the opinion polls.
If Labour are going to ignore what went on in Bradford West (and I do not think they should, I think it should be reported to the police), then they should not spend too much time licking their wounds but have a huge rethink on how to re-establish the Labour movement with its core voters. those of us who follow the labour party realise that they have not deserted people, but those people do not feel this, they feel under attack from their own government and they are crying out for Labour to stand up for them.

David Cameron, George Osborne and Nick Clegg and all their sycophantic MPs have made our caring welfare state bad words, something that we should be ashamed of, well we shouldn't be ashamed, the mark of a good civilised society can be gauged by the way it takes care of those worse off than ourselves. The Labour movement should put back the C into caring and take back the faux "compassion" from the Tories and re-establish compassion in our communities. I think they will and further, I too believe in fate and this is why I believe that Ed Miliband won the Labour leadership election, he does care, he does "get it", but he must start showing not only in thoughts, but also in deeds.