George Galloway to stand in the East End
December 2nd, 2004
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Will his campaign help keep Iraq in the news?
The ex-Labour and now Respect MP, George Galloway is to stand in the East End of London at the next General Election. He made his announcement after winning his High Court libel action against the Daily Telegraph newspaper. He has chosen the constituency of Bethnal Green and Bow, currently held for Labour by Oona King.
Respect won a council seat in nearby Tower Hamlets in July. Mr Galloway is currently the MP for Glasgow Govan, but was kicked out of the Labour Party after making a series of anti-war comments.
Earlier in the day he been awarded £150,000 damages over what were described as “outrageous and incredibly damaging” claims that he was in the pay of Saddam Hussein.
Apart the prospect of Labour losing a seat the campaign will attract a lot of media attention and will help keep Iraq in the news during the campaign. Whether this has a wider imact is hard to say.
There will certainly be a betting market on the seat at the election. In 2001 this was the result:-
LAB 19,380 50.38%
CON 9,323 24.23%
LD 5,946 15.46%
OTH 3,821 9.93%
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He hasn\’t got a chance.
I only hope you\’re right. Wikipedia has a reasonable summary of Mr Galloway\’s career. It makes enlightening reading. With luck, there will be a thorough investigation of his stewardship of War on Want.
I think it rather depends on how hard the LDs try. Tower Hamlets (Labour) council has been riddled with sleaze as Private Eye readers will know. GG will get a tonne of publicity every day. If you\’d care to offer 10-1 I will do a good amount with you (and Ben before he says what a great MP Oona King is!).
I\’m trying to persuade Betfair to crack open a seat market now… if others could ask them for the same I\’m sure it would help.
I wish you were right Innocent. I think he is one of the most loathsome men in British politics - you can take a look at Johann Hari\’s website today and read some of Galloway\’s delightful opinions.
Unfortunately, I think he has a very good chance.
The Telegraph versus George Galloway I wish it had been possible for them both to lose!
I\’ve got a lot of respect for Sean\’s knowledge of London politics and I fear he might be right. The seat will get tons of media attention and I fear GG might do it. Looking at the numbers a split Labour vote could help either the LDs or the Tories. In 2001 this was the result -
LAB 19,380 50.38%
CON 9,323 24.23%
LIB 5,946 15.46%
OTH 3,821 9.93%
Four parties could conceivably win it.
Very tough to know what Oona King will do. Resign her seat sounds like a cunning gambit to me. She has 5 months of \”Don\’t mention the war\” with Galloway mentioning it every day. Unenviable.
Really Bethnal Green and Bow has three kinds of people (stereotype I know), Moslems, and some quite big pockets of GMWs, particularly in Bow. I would have though the GMWs will be solidly LD as they have been in locals for years. Moslems are the biggest group and you have to fancy GG to win there. Can Oona get enough poorer white voters to come out? Then there is the Martin Bell anti-political aspect. You\’ve got to say its going to be a pretty effective protest to turf out a Blairite loyalist. Even GMWs might be tempted.
Bethnal Green and Bow was a four way split in the London Assembly elections in June, with the three main parties and Respect each polling over 20%.
Oona King might hold on on an Anyone But Galloway ticket. OTOH, his support among Muslim voters in the constituency (a rapidly growing element as working class whites move out) is huge.
Don\’t just look at the Stepney by-election; see how many votes Respect won in the Millwall by-election.
I think Millwall is in Poplar and Canning Town?
My money\’s on Gorgeous George.
The media feeding frenzy will easily match Martin Bell\’s in \’97, and will only be equalled if Kilroy-Silk stands in the E Mids. With that attention I expect the anti Blair GMW & Muslim vote to coalesce around the grorgeous one.
I don\’t think the LDs stand a chance here - their votes, I feel, will go lock-stock to GG because of the publicity he will generate. The Tories will (I\’m sure) stand back and wait for the brown stuff to hit the fan. In fact, it seems to me that there are plenty of reasons for a Tory to vote GG to see the look on Blair/King\’s face! Plus every Respect activist in the whole world will flood the seat. I think it\’ll be very close - but I\’d bet on a slim Galloway win here.
Tory activists in the constituency (there are some!) loathe Respect. They\’ll fight this campaign properly.
Jon, yes Millwall is in Poplar. But it\’s part of the same borough and many of the same issues apply.
I doubt that he will win, in the ICM Poll of Muslim voters Galloway’s mob… sorry I mean “respect” was at 4%! I would have expected at least a noticeable minority of Muslim voters going for such an unabashedly single issue party out to woo them, but it seems that such has not been the case. However in both Brum HH and Leicester South “Respect” won 6% and 12% respectively, that said both these contests where by-elections and as everyone knows the rules are different in by-elections.
A contest between Gorgeous George and Oona King will be a media circus, perhaps even more so than Tatton in 1997, the wonderful thing about this from a Labour point of view is it gets both of them on TV
and the less anyone shy of a militant Islamisist or Revolutionary Socialist hears of dear George the better for his dreams of grandeur especially facing an articulate and tele-genic person like Oona King. But TV will have a very limited effect on the voters in the seat (ie. The ones who matter) GMW are not going to get tempted by Galloway, some will certainly vote LD, however a significant number are likely IMHO are likely to be influenced by seeing Oona King on TV and contrasting her to George Galloway and many will vote for her even if just tactically.
But I think we are overstating the importance of GMW in Bethnal Green and Bow, the majority of the population are either Bengali Muslims or White Cockneys, any other Labour candidate and I wouldn’t worry about the support of the white cockney vote, but when the labour candidate is both Black and Jewish I would have thought that the BNP will save their deposit (as I think they did in 1997 and 2001), but I doubt that many will be impressed by a hard left-winger doing anything to appeal to the Muslim voters of the seat. So I think King will still get the same proportion of the white cockney vote she has always gotten, and at the same time I think she will get a slightly reduced (but not much) proportion of the GMW vote.
But the most important section of the vote to consider is the Muslim, predominantly Bengali, vote. While as I said ICM’s poll had “Respect’s” support amongst Muslim voters at 4% based on their successes in recent by-elections and the London Assembly/ Mayoral Elections in the seat they will do much better than that, however it must also be considered that the LDs will be running and they have won over a very solid block of the Muslim vote nationally and in addition the Conservatives are running a well know local leader from the Bengali community, so the Muslim vote will be well and truly split and Galloway will find it very hard indeed to gain anything near a majority of even that section of the vote.
I pretty confident that King won’t suffer any great reductions in her support within the white working class or GMW votes, however the Muslim/Bengali community is hard to read, The Conservatives will do better than they have any right to, the LD will improve upon their position and “Respect” will win a very sizeable chunk of votes, at the same time there will be a solid core of Labour voting Muslim voters, many of them from the older generation (and they are the most likely to vote… but that said I think turnout in Bethnal Green and Bow will be quite high because the media coverage and campaigning will be so intense).
In Conclusion I think the LD will see a modest increase in their vote, however I doubt they will campaign hard and will be outpaced as the “antiwar party” by “Respect”, at the same time the Conservatives will make some solid gains and the Labour vote will effectively split with Galloway taking about ½ and King the other ½, so it will be close however GMW and the White Cockneys will have no time for Galloway and could help King. In the End the LD will come in fourth, the Conservatives third and Labour and “Respect” will be very close together.
PS: The idea of Tories backing Respect is daft in the extreme, they have more sense as do the bulk of LDs
that’s like saying some other party members might vote for Griffin and the BNP to beat Jack Straw… having seen respect in Leicester South they are no better than the fascists in the BNP.
Let\’s not forget that the reason Galloway has chosen this particuar seat is because Respect topped the poll in Tower Hamlets at this year\’s Euros.
Respect 20.8%; Lab 19.8%; Con 18.6% LD 16.7%
It\’s close, but I see no reason why a concerted campaign couldn\’t manage it.
Jon Snow on C4 News tonight suggested the George Galloway standing would serve to take enough Labour votes away to just \’hand the seat to the Lib Dems\’. Galloway\’s reply made it sound like he was more interested in becoming leader of Tower Hamlets Borough Council a year later.
\’they are no better than the fascists in the BNP.\’
A thoroughly disgraceful comment. I hold no torch for GG but I am pleased the court result went his way.
Respect want Blair to be brought to account for the thousands of unnecessary deaths brought about by an illegal invasion. Sooner or later,he will be.
Comparing Respect with the BNP is a despicable piece of New Labour spin.
Tell me, have you ever been involved in a campaign where “Respect” have played a major part? Well I have, in Leicester South they attacked with eggs both Labour, Conservative and LibDem activists. “Respect” Activists would go round in large groups and intimidating activists from other partys if they where alone doing leafleting or canvassing. On polling day forty or so “respect” activist where deployed around one of the main polling stations in a predominantly Asian area with a Double Decker bus with loud speakers intimidating voters as they went in to vote, in response to this all three of the main party’s lodged complaints.
So those tactics would seem very like the bully-boy style commonly seen to be used by Griffin and his neo-fascists in the BNP.
On top of this if you want to talk about Gorgeous George, then the man was to some degree or another in collusion with the Iraqi regime (proven or unproven, then again Tony Blair has been cleared of any wrong doing over making the case for war but that doesn’t stop members of the far left calling for his impeachment or implying that he knowingly mislead the British people, he’s many things but not a liar), added to this Galloway’s attacks on Israel have often taken the form of thinly veiled anti-Semitism, something that I am sure will be employed when he takes on a Labour candidate who is both Black and Jewish.
Galloway is a man for whom I have no time for and find perfectly poisonous to any debate. And “Respect” must be one of the most extreme political groupings of the last fifty years, formed out of fringe Trotskyite and Radical Socialist groups that for a time made up the socialist alliance they have forged an alliance with the most militant sections of the Islamic community combining extreme social conservatism with radically leftwing attitudes on just about anything else, they are divisive in approach and bullying in style and I find them no better than the BNP, it is not “spin” as you like to say it is fact.
I pretty much agree with everything Ben has said about Respect, and the likely outcome in Bethnal Green and Bow.
On polling day in Millwall, loads of them were hanging round polling stations, trying to find out how people were intending to vote. The police were constantly moving them on.
A comparison with the BNP is apt. Galloway is on the record as comparing Saddam with Stalin (meaning it as a compliment) and described the fall of the Soviet Union as \”the blackest day of my life.\” Not to mention his saluting \”the courage strength and indefatigibility\” of Saddam Hussein.
I find it very hard to take seriously any tract of text which contains the unqualified assertion that Tony Blair is not a liar. I still don\’t think you have answered the point that Respect got 20-odd in the Euros - and that is without the enormous amount of publicity. They also didn\’t campaign that hard. There was only piece of info through the door where I stay in Bow for example.
And if you\’d like to bet on how many GMW\’s would vote for pretty much anyone to give New Labour a slap… have you seen the scene in Airplane where the woman is hysterical. Form and orderly queue…
Nonetheless, I think Ben has assessed the situation in the seat pretty well.
I think it will be tight, but I think Galloway will just fall short. However, with a four-way split he obviously has a good chance of winning.
I have no time for Galloway, but to accuse him of collusion with Saddam isn\’t quite true. He was a strange mixture of apologist & opponent of Saddam. He had a record of opposing him befor the \’91 war but aftr that his instinctive Arabism made him defend him against \”western Imperialism\”. He\’s really an old fashioned Stalinist who has gathered a coalition of etxremists, malcontents, trotskyites and fanatics around him. I also think that he is carrying out a fraud onthe majority Muslim voters - most of whom would be horrified at the wider RESPECT agenda but that doesnt matter. the key is that Galloway is a very effective campaigner - and as with Tommy Sheridan in Glasgow with the oxygen of publicity he has a real chance.
I cant help but feel that ben is being a bit optimistic - all political parties are seeing a their traditional patterns of support dissolve - allowing fringe groups to gain much greater traction. I don\’t understand why Ben thinks that GMWs will not support Galloway who they will see as someone who has been persecuted by Blair - a man they dispised in large part. Also - why does Ben think that Asian/Muslim voters woin\’t be influenced by TV? They will be - not leaset the many Asian/Muslim cable channels - who will be heavily concentrating on this seat.
This will be like a by-election campaign - and the bulk of RESPECT activists from around the country will camp out there for the duration.
Ben,
I have never voted Labour in my life; but if I were in BG&G (as I was during the last election, ironically), I would tactically vote for Oona to stop Galloway.
In fact, I\’d probably call my local Labour Party office and offer my envelope stuffing and leaflet delivering skillls. I dislike George that much.
Britain deserves a serious anti-war party. The people who opposed the war deserve better than George Galloway.
There are a lot there already (respect activists). Every time I come out of Mile End tube there seem to be half a dozen of them collecting signatures for the latest string up Blair petition.
Please can posters be extra careful with what they say on this issue. This is an unmoderated site and we must not allow anything to be published which could be defamatory.
Roll on a constituency poll!
I think the chance of the LibDems taking the seat are slim, no matter how much GG splits the Labour vote. I don\’t think the Tories could do it either for that matter. It\’ll be a GG-Lab split all the way. Indeed, we wanna see that seat polling!
Robert, I agree (not surprisingly), I was against the war but when the hard left and extremists effectively took control of the \”Stop the War Coalition\” I was appalled. The Movement against the war was very broad at the start literally millions of people on the right, left and in the centre where worried about the war, it was not hatred of America or even of Tony Blair that drove people it was a genuine concern about the polices of a particular president and a particular prime minister’s reaction to them, to have the movement hijacked by extremists for their own aims was really sickening and undermined the anti war lobby a great deal.
\”people who oppose the war deserve a serious party\” well move to Scotland or Wales and you will find one:)
I always enjoy Ben\’s posts even when I disagree with him……but for a Labour activist from Leicester to complain about \”intimidation\” on polling stations really did make me lol voters in many areas frequently had to cross a \”picket line\” of up to 20 Labour activists ast every local election I worked on between 1982 and 1999 in Leicester…..however at least the egg throwing is new…
I lived in Bethnal Green in 1997/8 and helped to run the Lib Dem campaign in Hackney in 98….in the Islington, Hackney, Tower Hamlets area the Lib dem vote was built through hard work on the council estates with the white middle class in private houses voting Labour…
I suspect Respect will win against the frankly vile Oona King…and all the Lib dem activists will be in Islington south where they hold all the council seats and Chris Smith is standing down…..
apologies for the comment on Oona King which should have no place here……was in a bad mood till I looked at the other thread and realised Robert Waller was posting here now……blimey! His almanack helped fuel my delusion that I wanted to be a Lib dem MP (I am a lot better now thanks)…if you have never read a version I suggest you get one asap:)
Hi
Here are some real numbers from the elections in June for the wards Bethnal Green & Bow constituency only. Should hopefully help with the number crunching and punditry…
Bethnal Green & Bow
Mayor 1st pref
RES 4782 16.36%
CPA 375 1.28%
LBD 5081 17.38%
GRN 1100 3.76%
BNP 868 2.97%
LAB 9945 34.02%
UKP 1282 4.39%
IND 65 0.22%
CON 5580 19.09%
IWC 162 0.55%
Total 29233
Mayor 2nd pref
RES 2759 11.66%
CPA 431 1.82%
LBD 6475 27.36%
GRN 3195 13.50%
BNP 947 4.00%
LAB 3920 16.57%
UKP 1876 7.93%
IND 194 0.82%
CON 3257 13.77%
IWC 606 2.56%
Total 23664
Euros
BNP 1273 4.19%
CPA 424 1.40%
CON 5124 16.86%
EDP 353 1.16%
GRN 2876 9.46%
LBD 5558 18.29%
RES 6475 21.30%
LAB 5805 19.10%
PBG 102 0.34%
UKP 2381 7.83%
Total 30397
GLA - London wide
ADC 160 0.54%
BNP 1517 5.10%
CPA 614 2.06%
CON 5176 17.39%
GRN 3033 10.19%
LAB 6052 20.33%
LBD 5708 19.18%
RES 5759 19.35%
UKP 1729 5.81%
Total 29765
GLA - member
LAB 6025 21.88%
LBD 5796 21.05%
CON 5434 19.73%
CPA 438 1.59%
GRN 2487 9.03%
UKP 2303 8.36%
RES 5052 18.34%
Total 27540
What\’s the record for elected MPs with lowest percentage of the vote in their constituency?
I think it was Sir (now Lord) Russell Johnston in Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber in 1992 with 26.0% of the vote.
If the Liberals don\’t bother campaigning (surely their councillors will want to put up a decent fight?) then Galloway should win. If they do then Oona should come through the middle.
I think its a real tragedy for the Muslim community in this country that they are being taken for such a ride.
Alex - that breakdown is very helpful - I think that the most useful figure for assessing party strength is the London -wide GLA figure - which takes out the personal votes for any particular candidate and gives all 4 parties between 20.3 & 17.4% of the vote.
It will be fascinating - but I really think that Galloway will take a big chunk of anti-war Labour voting GMWs, the Muslim vote & a fair amount of LDs voting tactically to defeat the Govt. As a LD who on a personal level dislikes \”Grorgeous George\” and actually thinks that King is not too bad at all (certainly compared to some of the people who been promoted to the frontbench over her), I would still have to think twice abbout who I voted for.
Only King can win. The muslim vote is about 45% of the electorate. Labour support amongst muslim voters has dropped from 68% to 28%. Do the maths kids. Oona will be back in on a reduced majority and a higher turnout. I reckon about 13,000 for Labour with Respect on about 10,000 and the Tories and Lib Dems - both of whom have selected \’unfortunate\’ candidates, trailing on 6- 8,000.
Let\’s hope Betfair or one of the bookies is reading this. All the conditions for a good betting market.
Bear in mind that the Guardian/ICM poll was of all Muslims in the country (all 2 million of them) not the ~30,000 living in Bow.
If Oona can get 28% of the Muslims in her constituency voting for her then she will win, but that is unlikely due to the huge effort Respect will put in and the fact that the Bow community is very homogenous (i.e. all Bangladeshi) so more likely to vote together.
Re 32, there have been 4-way marginals in Scotland and Wales (Lab/ LD/ Con/ nationalist) where winners have had not far above 25% of the vote - the arithmetic looks similar here.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/otherparties/story/0,9061,1365674,00.html
Re 36 - Agent, why are the two candidates \”unfortunate\”?
Mark - anyone who has actually met Oona knows that she is far from vile. In fact, this will be part of her saving grace. You can\’t knock on a door in Bethnal Green and Bow without finding someone who has met her, likes her and would vote for her despite their normal politics. She has a strong and growing personal vote and many people who vote Liberal in the locals vote for Oona because she has worked so hard for - and delivered so much in - her constituency. Faced with a choice between her and an MP who is deserting his constituency (where many people question his commitment already) for somewhere he sees as more winnable, i wonder who they\’ll chooose?
I don\’t think you are right about the distribution of LD votes in Tower Hamlets. When the LDs were down to their lowest ebb the seats they held were almost all in Bow, which is where most of the white middle class live (Mile End Old Town as it calls itself!). Of course there is some support in the council estates, and let\’s not forget Queen Mary College which must be a big chunk of voters.
Edward… I think the prevailing view now is that Oona is a slavish Blairite. I reckon Respect will get more LD voters than she will.
One thing is sure… it\’s going to be a fabulously dirty contest, though the fact that GG knows where the High Court is as well as how to use it might slow the Watson/Kemp machine down a bit.
What odds would you give on the whole thing having to be re-run following allegations of dirty tricks?
Hold on hold on aren\’t we all getting a bit carried away here?
Georgeous George has just won a victory in the courts and is at the height of his media interest (and positive image).
Hubris is a wonderful thing and I expect reality to sink in over the coming months. I don\’t beleive for one minute either the Telegraph or new Labour will allow him to get away with this (and neither should he). Expect to see a constant drip of stories and investigations into GG\’s past activities. It\’s not just War on Want where he has \’form\’ - there\’s the Mariam Appeal or even going way back the Dundee Labour clubs.
Once his record is revealed - I can\’t imagine anyone wanting to vote for him - unwashed, swivel eyed trot or not.
The election is a long way away for GG and Respect. Galloway is no Martin Bell and the more media coverage he gets the worse it is for him.
I agree with Ben - GG and his supporters are definitely in the same league as the BNP and will go exactly the same way when people wake up to their real views and real record.
Oh dear, how I wish some of you had actually been to Tower Hamlets.
Interestingly I would love to see what the real Edward Ponsonby says about the praise (in his name) for Oona King
A constituency poll will be useless, how on earth would pollsters get a response from the older Bengali women.
The idea of Oona and Galloway debating on TV will probably send the turnout crashing downwards. In Blairspeak and Islington she will come over as her admireres perceive her, to all else she will appear as an opinionated on message poodle.
Trust Jon Snow to clutch at the Lib Dem straw, in the GLA/European election/GLA member elections in June, Labour won only one ward, Mile End and Globe Town (which has 2 Lib Dem councillors, the Conservatives one (St Katharine\’s and Wapping), the Lib Dems4 (Bow East, Bow West, Bethnal Grren North and Weavers)with respect carrying the remainder.
What should be noted is teh size of teh Respect vote in Whitechapel - 1,021in Europe.
The european ballot paper stated Respect - the unity coalition, George Galloway.
Anyone who has seen a Tower HAmlets election will understand that campaigning is totally different to elsewhere adn election day borders on the chaotic. In St Dunstan\’s the movement towards Respect in the final days was tangible.
Oona King will have the fight of her life but ignore pundits, pollstars and anyone from the BBC who thinks that they can work out what will go on.
Didn\’t the SNP try to reveal this record when he was a Labour candidate to no avail? Isn\’t the truth that he is a left-wing firebrand with views that most of us would find pretty outrageous but there have been plenty of those in the HoC over the years?
I have been there - I lived in Whitechapel and Bow for 6 years and still go there every fortnight.
Good point about the pollsters though… you would need a pretty special pollster when English is the third language.
Peter,
My former landlord in Whitechapel was both a senior member of the local mosque, and a Rotarian. He was instinctively anti-war, and therefore - I suspect - would initially lean towards Respect.
But he is also a very intelligent and moral man. When - and I suspect it is only a matter of when - the truth about George Galloway comes out, he will be turned off. There is a lot of - public - dirt on GG that can be distributed. (The admission of sex-fuelled trips to Mykanos at the, soon to be insolvent, War on Want\’s expense will probably not go down to well in Whitechapel.)
I suspect few LibDems and Tories will want Galloway to win, and I sincerely hope he does not.
Jon
When did you last knock on a door in the constituency?
This year
Reading the Guardian article linked above a thought occurs to me. If King is deeply unpopular with the local party as a result of her stance on Iraq, how many footsoldiers will she have available to do all the door-to-door dogwork of getting her re-elected?
It\’s a fairly safe assumption that Respect will have many, many more activists on the ground than Labour, let alone the Tories or LDs.
We really need to get Betfair going on this one… I hope everyone with an account is bothering them about it.
Ben, Re 18 ‘…Tony Blair has been cleared of any wrong doing over making the case for war’. Smirk.
\’Ben, Re 18 ‘…Tony Blair has been cleared of any wrong doing over making the case for war’. Smirk. \’
..and that sanctimonious comment from someone who denies being a Blair toady.
Pathetic.
Re: 53 I’m sorry but I’ve had just about enough of this from you, simply because I’m a proud member of the labour party and supporter of much of this government’s program does not make me or anyone else a toady, this kind of charge coming from someone who’s an apologist for a toady of a mass murdering dictator now that’s rich.
Tony Blair is many things, I don’t think he’s gods gift to the Labour Party, I think we where wrong to go to war and on trade I’m firmly to his left these are not the positions of a toady. On Iraq there is not one shred of proof that he ever lied, drew misleading conclusions? Yes, based his decision on evidence we now know to be flawed? Yes, massaged the information? Yes (but on any issue politicians of any stripe will do that), but knowingly lied to parliament and the British people? No. In the end the argument that Tony Blair is some how a disingenuous liar is a cover for the people on the far left of politics that have always harboured an abiding distaste for him.
Your accusations of me being a toady seem to be based on nothing more than your irrational hatred, yes hatred, because that what it seems to me of Tony Blair personally and the Labour government, well I will tell you now that as a socialist I’m proud of much of what this government has done as it has broadened opportunity and created a fairer and more just society as should any socialist government.
And finally please get some new material because toady is getting mighty old.
PS: Mike I apologise for reacting to this but when someone goes after you on the basis of being without values or spin I’m bound to react.
I\’m baffled by AgentE2\’s logic.
If King won roughly 70% of the Muslim vote, which gave her 30% overall - then she took about 40% of the white vote - which gave her the rest of her 50% overall.
In order to be sure of winning the seat she would have to poll in the mid-30\’s overall. Having had her Muslim vote halved then to about 15% of the electorate that means she would have to pick up an extra 20% (that is keep 40 % of the white vote, both middle class & working class.)
I can\’t see that happening. It\’s gonna be close but like I said, my money\’s on Gorgeous George
That wasnt meant to be anonymous
Well at the risk of fighting someone else\’s battles Blair said
\”His [Saddam\'s] WMD programme is active, detailed and growing.\”
He also described the intelligence upon which this assetion was based as
\”extensive, detailed, and authoritative\”.
Now one thing Hutton and Butler etc. have done is make absolutely clear to me any many others that this is was a lie. Hard to interpret any other way surely unless you believe that Blair was only presented with a completely doctored set of evidence?
Whether or not one believes Blair lied, there is no call to describe Ben as \” a toady\”.
What makes this site work is that people of different parties can contribute without insulting each other. Once that convention goes, then this website will be finished.
Hear, hear, Sean!
Thank you Sean, I do try to keep my tone down (honestly) and I don’t mind folks really disagreeing with me but degrading my views as some kind of self motivated sycophancy is very hurtful… and a depth to which no one on this site, save the one who made the accusation should ever plummet IMHO.
Sean - my sentiments exactly. Politicalbetting has become a unique community where activists from all parties, as well as professionals in the polling industry, can exchange experiences. During Hartlepool I welcomed the forthright views of \”NotJody\” because he/she gave a real feel for the passions on the ground.
This site would be much poorer without Ben or Sean.
What we are lacking are regular UKIP and SNP contributors - anybody any thought.
Enjoy Bermuda, Mike - we\’ll all try not to be jealous but of course we don\’t promise… I\’ve sent an e-mail about \”Political Betting\” to an SNPer who has a weblog I know of - altho\’ his last post suggests he\’s about to be expelled! Just my luck…
Can those who know please be sure to mention it on this site if/when a market is opened on this seat. I\’ve been desperate to have a flutter on it for months, in expectation of the vile GG running!
Most of the regulars will have noted I apologised for my comments about oona king as they have no place here……….
All the stuff about Galloway and his trip to Mykonos came out in 1987 it did not stop him beating Roy Jenkins…….in fact Galloway went into an organisation that was in a hell of a mess and tried to sort it…I dont like him as I am pro israeli and see him and his fellow travelers as part of the probelem…but claiming stuff will \”come out\” about him is either wishful thinking or just plain bs……………….
I don\’t see how Ben\’s New Labour spin serves to enlighten any one.
Sorry Mark - there is a very good reason for it to come out now - New Labour in the form of Oonagh King is in trouble. Remember the shenanigans about the world champion boxer Terry Marsh who was going to stand for the Lib Dems in Basildon in 1997? Full page exposes in the Mirror about £500 of student grants he may or may not misclaimed from Tower Hamlets Council. Labour were clearly worried his intervention would have cost them the seat. Do you really think having spent years surpressing the stories about GG that they will allow him to get off?
They won\’t - and Galloway will crash and burn (deservedly). The more interesting question is in the long term there cannot be any future for Oonagh in the East End - it will be a seat that will provide a huge amount of interest for political betters for the foreseeable future.
Dan, as I said further up the thread I think the contest will be close with all the three main partys + \”Respect\” on around 20% with a very slim margin of victory for who ever wins, however some of the folks from Old Queen street where saying when we where talking about a King vs Galloway fight that if she survived it would be the making of her, as she would have received a significant degree of media attention during the campaign and would probably get promoted but at the same time quite a few seemed to think that if she won she would be pressured to move to another seat that would be more receptive to her.
Some have suggested that the Bengali community is very homogenous and so likely to swing en-mass to one candidate or another, this is true to a degree, having seen something similar in Leicester South, but remember that in both 1997 and 2001 a noticeable section of the Bengali community abandoned Labour because King was both Black and Jewish, so I don’t think the community will move as a singular group as I said further up the thread a small number may vote LD, a significant number will vote for the local Bengali conservative candidate, but the vast majority will either vote Labour or “Respect” I would expect the older voters to vote Labour with the younger voters backing “Respect” however the older voters are more likely to vote… but overall I think both the anti-Galloway and the anti-Labour/ anti-War camps will be pretty heavily motivated and so a high turnout is likely but it will be close either way.
Ben - you don\’t have to convince me about GG - and to the others further up the thread - I know a lot about Tower Hamlets.
New Labour is obviously worried - don\’t be - just trash him. If you can do it to by-election candidates who use a mobile phone or practice law - Galloway is a huge target in comparison. I can\’t believe Labour don\’t think they\’ll trounce him - if not I\’m more than happy to advise you on how to do it!
If only I was the new labour apparatchik people like to think I am, I would be more than happy to have all the advice you could give me, but I’m relatively far down the food chain and working 100 miles away from London and Bethnal Green, luckily for King as she’s facing GG and is a good TV performer herself the party will have to invest a lot, Milburn was suppose to be working on a means to reconnect with the Muslim community… how the hell he’s going to do that I don’t know, but it’s a fair guess that what ever the strategy it will be first employed in Bethnal Green, I still think Galloway is likely to split the Labour vote and it will be close, but it months away and already Galloway is already seeing the limelight shift away from him… that will change at the general but it will still only be a side show, although no doubt good viewing for anyone.
Re.61. I\’m not an SNP supporter myself but I may be able to give a Scottish angle to your discussion. For what its worth I think the SNP will perform quite badly and end up with around the same number of seats as the Scottish Tories (probably between 3-5). The Nats have very little money and have few members outside of their North East strongholds. At the moment they are concentraiting their campaign on Iraq and WMD just as they did with little effect in 2003. They will do well to gain a couple of seats from Labour (the Western Isles and Dundee East) but this may be offset by Tory gains in the new Angus and North Perthshire Seats.
Thanks for that Max. Where do you think the Tories are targetting in Scotland? They must be having a time of it fending off the SNP in Galloway. I\’m assuming they\’ll go for Pentlands and Ayr (the seats they hold with MSPs) too.
Its different this time Tony as the number of Scottish seats have been cut from 72 to 59. Nearly all the boundaries have changed and Ayr and Pentlands have dissapeared. The analysis that has been done suggests the Tories would lose the new Dumfries & Galloway seat to Labour with the SNP trailing in 3rd. However the analysis uses the levels of support in 2001 and dosen\’t take into account the 2003 election. On the new boundaries I think the Tories will take Dumfries & Galloway and Dumfriesshire,Clydesdale & Tweedale. If the SNP continues to perform poorly they may take Angus, Perth & North Perthshire and have an outside chance in South Perthshire and Ochil. The only other seats they\’ll target are Edinburgh South, Central Ayrshire and maybe West Aberdeenshire. As I said they\’ll probably get 3-5 seats and will be fairly happy with that.
http://www.alba.org.uk/nextge/constituencies.html
This site gives what the notional result would have been in 2001 based on new boundaries.
Hmmm - interesting, Max. The impression I was getting from distance was that Alex Salmond had reinvigorated the SNP (eg campaigning for the Black Watch, etc).
Is it possible they could make progress in the cities against Labour without taking more than a couple of seats, whilst stagnating in more rural areas?
BTW, the notional results for 2001 on the new Scottish boundaries quoted by Will in 73 are not the same as those on Martin Baxter\’s website - evidently different calculation methods. Majorities are sometimes about 1500 different, so be careful….
Thats a fair point Andy. Its quite hard to say as none of the newspapers carry Scottish Polls. All I would say is that in local council by-elections the SNP are standing still or going backwards. I know these don\’t translate into a General Election but you would expect a resurgent SNP to be doing rather better. As for the SNP winning in the cities you have to remember that they have never had much support in Edinburgh and no matter how Glasgow boundaries change they\’ll still be solidly Labour. One final thing, the other set of notional results were calculated by Rallings & Thrasher.
Dan
Interested in your comments as I assume there is more stuff about Galloway that I dont know about….(always a good chance of that!)..
Ben/Dan
Like all communities the Bengali one varies significantly….for example in leicester it is split in half with each doing the exact opposite on any given issue not sure about Tower Hamlets but I doubt the community is all that homogenous….
Max….interested in what you say about the SNP but the membership has always been highly concentrated……….I would expect them to do better in a general election with Salmond as leader……equally the issue of the war in Iraq is more potent now than in 2003 …..
Ben
Great result for City on Saturday:)
Good piont Mark
, had a good feeling when Levin took over that said lets not build him up to much but he said the defence needed some work and it looks like hes managed to give it a little more focus… so all in all very good indeed, things had been looking pretty bleak.
The Bengali community can\’t be all that united in Bethnal Green and Bow when in the Euros and Mayoral elections each of the main party\’s got around 20% of the vote… i was speaking to some of the folks in Bethnal today about getting some students down from LSE and KCL to help out, and they seemed to think that King would win if it was a four way split will all the party’s scoring in the 18-23% range, but other wise it would be a real fight based on the Euro and local London results in May i think it will split fourways and be very close.
As for the Bengali community in Leicester, it certainly interesting
historically they have always been the most ideologically Labourite and it would seem that Labour support within the Bengali community was the highest within the Muslim community during the by-election and astonishingly Labour did better in the Stoneygate ward (Which should not be confused with the area normally described as stoneygate) improved on the party’s performance in the 2003 elections.
Hmmm not sure the Bengali restaurant owners I know (many still prominenet in the community) are ideologically \”labour\” as most were horrified by the minimum wage………The Labour vote increased in Stoneygate (i would guess) because the middle class Labour voters in the \”Way roads\” and off London road stopped at home in the local elections but because some of their friends were getting the axe through changes pushed through by the Councilofficers/Tories/liberals
and I didnt vote by post as my current party frowns on meddling in English politics 
they voted in the by election……Labour generally did better in the by-election than the locals……also of course I moved out of Stoneygate ward between the local elections and the by-election so there was one less vote for Parmjit
Mark, did you know Ned and Malcolm both live in Stoneygate and both where councillors, although Malcolm wasn’t a councillor for Stoneygate it’s self? Just out of interest, as for thing in Leicester South CLP the furore over the council seems to have subsided with the new leadership getting a fair bit of positive press with initiatives that seem to have gone down well with a lot of voters
the city council campaign will be interesting when it comes although the Leicester South contest will be interesting but very tough all the same.
Respect will be standing in the following East End seats:
Bethnal Green and Bow(Oona King) - George Galloway
Poplar and Limehouse(Jim Fitzpatrick) - Oli Rahman
East Ham(Stephen Timms) - Abdul Khaliq
West Ham(Tony Banks - retiring) - Lindsey German
Results for Respect in those constituancies in the European Elections were as follows:
Bethnal Green and Bow - 23.4%
Poplar and Limehouse - 18.8%
East Ham - 25.6%
West Ham - 20.6%
RobertS - how do you know when they were counted by borough?
Jon - breakdowns of ward-by-ward results are available. You can work out the constituency votes from that.
As a Brit Bangali living in Ilford, I shall be voting for Labour and Mike Gapes at the forthcoming elections. Yes, my local MP is a member of the ‘Friends of Israel’ and ‘Friends of India’ Parliamentary groups and in my opinion displays a slight Zionist bent. Muslim groups like MPAC and MAB make a big deal out of such associations. And certainly some Bangladeshis and Muslims will be strongly swayed by such considerations.
However, for the rest of us issues such as interest rates, mortgages, employment, education, foundation hospitals and safer streets are of paramount importance. Issues such as Iraq, Palestine and Kashmir come a poor second to issues that directly affect us. In this respect I suspect that Bangladeshi and Muslim voters have similar concerns to their fellow citizens.
Needless to say, neither Bangladeshis nor Muslims have historically voted as a ‘block,’ reflecting the diverse ethnic and linguistic backgrounds represented.
Whoever they choose, I hope my Bangali bhais and bhuns turn out to vote in large numbers. Participation in the democratic process is an important part of being a British citizen.
In my opinion the Bangladeshi vote in Bow & Bethnal Green will be split between:
ï‚· Labour loyalists (mainly but not exclusively composed of the middle-aged and older members of our community)
ï‚· Those voting for Respect (mainly the younger university educated activists)
 Those voting for the Conservative and Lib Dem candidates, who happen to have (very sensibly) fielded Bangali candidates. Never underestimate the pull of Bangali nationalism. Especially if it results in empowering one of our own; ‘nizer manush’.
Labour wouldn’t have had any problems if they’d fielded Pola Uddin, rather than bumping her up to the House of Lords.
I think it’s a mistake just to focus on Bethnal Green & Bow’s Bangladehsi population. About 50% of the electorate are white, and I can’t see that many of them voting for Galloway, whose appeal is directed exclusively at Muslim voters. That’s why I think Oona King will hold on, narrowly.
With the Greens starting to campaign quite hard it seems in a number of wards where they did fairly well in last years elections and with a terrific candidate I can really see them being the tie breaker in what is a 4 horse race. Labour are going to be haemorrhaging votes to the Lib Dems, Respect and the Greens. It will really come down to whether the Greens can take more off Respect or the Lib Dems and if they can take some of Labour. The Green message chimes nicely with groups all over the constituency and are hoping to win councillors by 2011 at the latest. Not a force to be ignored
RESPECT to win in Bethnal Green and Bow, and in East Ham. They will cause New Labour to lose in Birmingham and Leicester as well as East London.
Recent RESPECT campaigning suggests a more concerted effort to attract white voters.
My prediction is a Labour win in Bethnal Green and Bow, but with a much smaller majority. Single-issue groups have historically performed badly in General Elections and not enough people in East London will vote according to ethnic or sectarian motives. We will find out on May 5th.
I think Sean and Said have it covered there are not just Muslims living in Bethnal Green, and not everyone is going to follow sectarian lines. I’m looking forward to voting against George.
‘Single-issue groups have historically performed badly in General Elections’
Good job we are not a single issue group
george won.. labour lost. proof there is a God.. hope all u labour supporters lost your bets.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha and hardy hardy har. A big fat one in the eye for the “telegenic” one, her controller and all the members of their flag-bearing fanclub. God bless George. Squeeze the no-longer-quite-so-smug bastards until the truth pops out! Then bye bye nu-labor. And no; history won’t be kind.
Where have all the sectarians gone, long time passing?
Where have all the sectarians gone, long time ago?
Where have all the sectarians gone?
RESPECT broke their hearts, everyone
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Where have all the anarchists gone, long time passing?
Where have all the anarchists gone, long time ago?
Where have all the anarchists gone?
Gone for lunch at Claridges, everyone
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Where have all the Indymedia trolls gone, long time passing?
Where have all the Indymedia trolls gone, long time ago?
Where have all the Indymedia trolls gone?
They backed Oona, everyone
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Where have all the doubters gone, long time passing?
Where have all the doubters gone, long time ago?
Where have all the doubters gone?
They knew better, everyone
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Where have all the islamophobes gone, long time passing?
Where have all the islamophobes gone, long time ago?
Where have all the islamophobes gone?
Still polishing their Programmes, everyone
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Where have all the sectarians gone, long time passing?
Where have all the sectarians gone, long time ago?
Where have all the sectarians gone?
RESPECT broke their hearts, everyone
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Of all the MPs that Labour lost, Oona King is the most serious personal loss. I’m sure she wont be without a seat for long, she was too good a local representative to be discarded completely. Whether or not that seat is Bethnal Green is another matter.
As for the next five years, we are stuck with a self grandising ego-maniac who has brought cynical manipulation in British politics to a new level. His past record certainly does nothing to inspire us for the future.
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i was campaigning for respect up untill 8pm on election night. even then our count from canvass return was around 10,ooo votes and support. we were still nervous by then.