George Galloway is back in parliament.  Some see this as a welcome addition to the House, others as a distraction from real life.  Whichever you fancy it is clear that there will at least be some life in that dull, well suited, public school boy front bench talking shop now.  George has some daft ideas, but he is clever, very clever.  While a member of the Labour Party many thought he could one day become leader, and then Prime Minister!  Sadly he was not only to far to the left for the Blair types, he is almost certainly barmy!  His victory in a by-election few knew was happening took many by surprise. This was a sad indictment on the political class and their followers.  George was clearly going to win, and how do I know?  Muslims!  George was never keen on the wars in the middle east, and made this clear.  Many of us agreed with him there.  he often took things to far, including meeting Saddam Hussein and even referring to the dictator as 'indefatigable!'  He suffered a lot of loss for that remark.

However in Bradford he has clearly taken note of the people, mostly Asian, centred his outreach on the Muslims, his posters were found in no other areas but theirs, and concentrated on their prejudice and understanding of the UK/US and the middle east.  Pandering to their beliefs, right or wrong, he won by a huge majority.   

Listening to the radio early in the morning I was reminded of others who have used the same tactic.  Moseley the Fascist became a clever rabblerouser in the thirties, Enoch Powell and his 'Rivers of Blood' speech in the sixties, was another extremely clever and well spoken politician who said what he thought, but missed out what he did not wish to see.  George is following their line, although from a different political colour.  Tell the voters what they wish to hear and be elected, then forget them and do your own thing!  What will George do about the economy in Bradford, especially as the council is Labour and there are two other MP's, one Labour and one Lib-Dem?  How many jobs can he create?   His party, 'Respect,' had, and may still have, one MP in East London, another very Muslim area.  It is also riddled with corruption but nothing has changed there.  No jobs have flooded in, possibly the opposite.  I suspect we will hear a lot from George Galloway, a Scotsman, but all to no avail.

Too many have pandered to race, too much time is taken up with sex discrimination, to many Gay rights activists shout others down.  It is time we took another approach, it is time we spoke only about 'People!'  It is people who matter, those who live where we are, and we ought to spend no time discussing from a minority attitude but instead from an attitude of what is best for all, not just a few.  No more 'rights,' but 'responsibilities' and indeed 'duty.'  Care for others rather than 'me first.' 

Race was in all the papers in Thatchers Britain, but a Church of England report, much despised by the mad baroness, showed clearly that race was tenth out of ten priorities for inner city dwellers.  Jobs, homes, schools, hospitals all came way ahead of race, and this when there were riots blamed on 'race,' rather than 'criminality!'  I lived in the middle of London and race hardly ever got mentioned, the other things did, and by folks of all types, there again we were not on the make.

I look forward to seeing George in action, but I expect little advancement for Bradford this way.  This video (1 of 5) reveals something of his ability as he smashes the senate committee into the ground.  This was the high point of his popularity in the UK.