Love the song, support George

10Shott's brilliant anti-war track Tin Soldiers is a great song with a great video and it will be a major boost to George's election campaign if you download it. Each download costs 79p and the record company are donating 20% of each download to the election funds.

We did it before - getting our track War into the UK Top 20 - and we can do it again. Imagine the impact if this blistering attack on US and UK warmongering is a huge hit! You can make it so and help fund George's campaign to put backbone into the London Assembly.

It couldn't be simpler. Just click here to play the track and download it and that will send the battle bus another few miles along the campaign trail - that is if the country doesn't run out of diesel! Help George sort out the GLA. Hit the download button today (and enlist all of your family and friends). Make the difference now.

Join George Galloway on the Respect election bus

From now until the elections on May 1st, George Galloway and Respect activists, supporters and campaigners will be travelling all over London on our open-top battle bus.

Election battle busWe'll be out from about 12pm every day til 7 in the evening. We'll be stopping to give out leaflets and speak to people and really trying hard to build the vote for George and the other London Assembly candidates.

Come to Club Row, London E1 (near Liverpool Street and Bethnal Green tubes) every day for 12pm to join us on the bus. If you'll be in any of the areas listed below, just join us along the way - call Kevin on 07930 532952 for details of where we are. We can arrange to pick you up on a main road if you're near where we're going.

Text GEORGE to 81456 to donate to the election campaign

If you'd like to donate money to help George's election campaign, please text GEORGE plus your email address to 81456. Click here for full details

George Galloway's London election campaign launched

The Respect election campaign for the London Assembly elections got underway today, with a launch from our bus outside City Hall.

We're planning on having a fun, vibrant campaign, and we want you to be a part of it. If you'd like to help out, please email us at votegalloway@gmail.com

We'll post regular updates on this site, but the most important thing is the help you, George's voters and supporters, can give. Please see George's letter below for details

An urgent message from George Galloway MP

Dear friend,

I want to personally inform you that I am standing for election to the London Assembly on 1st May 2008 and to ask for your help.

The assembly is meant to be London's government but virtually no-one has ever heard of any body in it. I want to change that.

Having shaken up the US Senate, with your help, I can do the same in City Hall.

How can you help?

1) My election campaign urgently needs funds. Please, donate as much as you can to the George Galloway Election Fund.

Please make cheques payable to "George Galloway Election Fund" with your name and address on the back, so we can send you a receipt, and send it to: George Galloway Election Fund, PO Box 1109, London, N4 2UU.

If it's easier, you can transfer funds to the following:

Account Name: George Galloway Election Fund

Please note that the Electoral Commission regulates donations to political parties. We will need to be able to identify who you are and whether we are able to accept a donation from you, so please make sure you enclose your name and address. Visit The Electoral Commission website for full details of the regulations.

2) I need your help in the campaign. If you can help us leaflet, canvass, come aboard our battle bus, raise our profile online, help in the office or organise a group for us to speak to, then please contact us on 0871 234 1696 or 07507 600 561 or email us

3) Please give me your vote on 1st May. Vote Respect (George Galloway) to shake up the London Assembly.

4) Please tell your friends I'm standing. Email them, text them, call them, message them on Facebook - let them all know!

I hope to see you on the campaign trail.

We'll have an energetic and fun campaign. I hope you can be a part of it.

Best Wishes,
George Galloway MP

George writes from Bahrain

At a charity event in the Bahrain capital Manama on Monday I helped raise half-a-million dollars for charity relief in Gaza.

The event was put together at short notice in the Crowne Plaza hotel and the response to my appeal was stunning. In a few minutes we raised $500,000. I put up a signed copy of my book The Fidel Castro Handbook in an auction and it raised $22,000 - that's £11,000!

It just shows you the depth of feeling in the Arab and Muslim world to the tragedy we are helplessly witnessing in Gaza. Well, not so helplessly because this money will assist in putting food on the tables and clothes on the backs of children. If only the world's leaders were as willing to help.

‘Time for openness over Parliamentary expenses’ says Respect MP

Respect MP George Galloway has written to the House of Commons authorities supporting a ruling by the Information Commissioner in favour of greater disclosure of MPs’ expenses.

Mr Galloway was named as one of the high profile MPs information about whose expenses a member of the public wanted disclosed. “I have no reason to hide the information,” says Galloway. “The House authorities have pursued a particular route in opposing the Information Commissioner’s ruling. Whatever the claimed merits for that on the grounds of privacy, there is no way it can be justified, especially in the new climate of public concern over these issues.

“Whatever other parliamentary colleagues decide, I have told the House authorities that I have no objection to the disclosure of the information pertaining to me. I don’t claim for a second home; I don’t have family members on the payroll and I don’t claim for travel.”

Please find below the text of the email sent today to the House of Commons official responsible for data protection issues:

Dear Mr Castle,

I noted that the Sunday newspapers have now reported that I am one of several members whose expenses details have been requested by a member of the public – a matter you’ve already corresponded with me on.

I am writing to inform you that I do not wish you to appeal this matter on my behalf. I don’t know about the other parliamentarians involved, but I have no reason to hide these details and rather than expend any further public money appealing this matter I would rather you provided the member of the public in question with my details.

I’ve been mindful over the past few months that the House has wanted to take a collegiate and collective approach to this issue. However, in the light of current circumstances and the understandable concerns of the public, I don’t feel this matter should be resisted any further.

Yours sincerely,

George Galloway MP

"No return to Life on Mars policing"

Respect MP George Galloway has tabled a parliamentary motion today (EDM 839) condemning the rush to return to 1970s style policing, which targeted young black and Asian people, criminalising a generation, poisoning community relations and eventually erupting in flames.

"It would be Ashes to Ashes indeed, if Gordon Brown - in a race to the bottom of the
barrel with David Cameron - were to scrap the lessons of the Macpherson report into the murder of Stephen Lawrence and unleash untrammelled police powers back into the same communities," says Galloway.

"We are calling on the public to demand their MP signs this motion. This is an issue
across Britain, but nowhere more than in London, where I am determined to intervene to ensure that bigotry and institutionalised racism is beaten back at the ballot box when London votes on 1 May."

Early Day Motion #839, 31 January 2008

Stop and Search, and social cohesion

This House recalls the systemic use of police stop and search powers in the 1970s and 1980s, and the social consequences - in the form of the inner city riots of 1981 and 1985 - which followed; is mindful of the increased use of stop and search in recent years and the deleterious consequences that has had for social cohesion; is further mindful of the evidence which shows that not only is stop and search an ineffective method of dealing with crime and terrorism, its widespread use leads to the alienation of the very communities whose cooperation is vital to tackling extremism; this House is therefore alarmed at the apparent willingness of the Government and the official Opposition to encourage still more use of stop and search, and the abandonment of checks and balances which were part of the lessons learned from the tragic murder of Stephen Lawrence.

George Galloway MP

Galloway condemns strike ban for prison officers

Reacting to a statement by Justice Secretary Jack Straw in Parliament this afternoon, Respect MP George Galloway condemned New Labour’s move to reimpose a ban on industrial action in the prison service.

Galloway said, “New Labour’s assault on trade unionists is, incredibly, getting worse under Brown than it was under Blair. Three years ago the government lifted the Tory-era ban on the right to strike for prison officers in return for a no strike agreement. The Prison Officers Association in return got a pay review body that was supposed to ensure decent pay rises.

“Now Brown’s government is imposing a 1970s-style pay freeze across the public sector. It has refused to implement the review body’s recommendations, just as it is set to swindle half a million teachers by imposing a pay award less than the rate of inflation.

“The response from prison officers has been justified indignation which boiled over into wildcat strike action last year. The only people to blame for that are the government. But the government is now seeking to punish prison officer trade unionists by reviving one of the very few Tory anti-union measures it ameliorated.

“It is an outrage, particularly from a party that continues to rely on trade unionists dues to keep going. Every trade unionist and everyone who cares about rights for working people should stand with the Prison Officers Association in opposing this mugging of their rights.

“This is not simply a matter for the POA and it would be foolish to be sidetracked into the minutiae of the rights and wrongs of prison officers. This is a sign of the anti-union measures Brown is prepared to invoke in order to slash working people’s pay while food and fuel bills go through the roof and the banks start foreclosing on mortgages.

Blackpool Pleasure breach - convention cancelled at the last minute

We are now trying to contact everyone who bought a ticket or expressed an interest in going to Blackpool for the convention, cancelled at the last minute by David Cam, a director of Blackpool Pleasure Beach Ltd.

Personally, I can only apologise once more. But we wll be meeting when all of this is sorted.

George

Claiming a refund on the cancelled conference

Please post the following information to Miranda Media, 10 Abington Close, London SE1 5RW :

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Full Name:

Ticket reference number:

E-mail:

Phone number:

Transport cost:

Accommodation cost:

Any other loss (days taken off work):

These losses should include any irrecoverables like fares or hotel deposits, together with documentary proof if available.

Sign

Full Name

-------------------------------------------------------------------------- The above form does NOT not have to be printed out from the website - it can be typed/written.

Please include copies of receipts/tickets/confirmation of booking/employer letters. Please do NOT send originals

Mark Steel: Why should Galloway be the only fall guy?

http://marksteelinfo.com/writing/default.asp?id=35

Perhaps the explanation is their procedures were taken from 'Alice in Wonderland'

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

At last a politician has been suspended for their role in the Iraq war. You'd have thought it would have happened before now, and you might have thought when it finally happened, it wouldn't be the politician most prominently against the war.

Suspending George Galloway for his conduct in Iraq is as if last week's trial of those failed suicide bombers ended with the judge saying "This was a monstrous crime. So I'm going to let you off, and jail the bloke who chased you through the Underground."

The main reason given for the suspension is that some of the money for Galloway's charity came from a dodgy Jordanian businessman. Is this the normal attitude with charities, that no donation should be accepted without the donor being investigated? Maybe it's a new culture, and in next year's "Children in Need", Terry Wogan will say: "And how about this? We've had a grand donation of £25 from Mrs Wimthorpe in Derby. Well I've got one thing to say - who the hell are you, Wimthorpe, and what's your game? We're going to go through you with a microscope and if you've put one finger out of line you can keep your dirty money you old scallywag, spina bifida doesn't need you."

Another source of friction is that Galloway's charity, The Mariam Appeal, which assisted sick Iraqis who were suffering from the effects of sanctions against their country, was political in that it was against those sanctions. In other words, it was against the thing causing the suffering. And that's wrong, apparently.

So presumably there will also be investigations into appeals for victims of earthquakes. How dare these people oppose earthquakes in the name of charity? At least they should be balanced, and allow space for supporters of earthquakes to present their side of the story.

The original investigation into Galloway's dealings in Iraq came when The Daily Telegraph accused him of taking money from Saddam, an allegation that cost them £150,000 when they lost the libel case. Now, despite their acceptance he didn't take a penny for himself, the parliamentary committee says his charity "damaged the reputation of the house". So there's the explanation - the full report probably went: "You mean you weren't on the take? How the bloody hell does that make the rest of us look, you bastard?"

Somehow, however, the diligent committee seems to have missed other possible examples of the house being brought into disrepute, such as a Prime Minister taking the country into war because "I have no doubt that Saddam possesses weapons of mass destruction - absolutely no doubt, no doubt whatsoever."

And insisting we could be attacked in 45 minutes when he knew this was bollocks; and ignoring his own intelligence that this would make us targets for terrorism; and ignoring the UN and the weapons inspectors, so assisting in the creation of mass carnage, while he swans off to make millions from his memoirs.

If they want to investigate corruption in the Middle East, they could look at the $300m taken in cash from the Central Bank in Iraq, and secretly flown to Beirut in a chartered jet to buy arms, organised by the Iraqi Defence Minister whom we helped put in place. This led to his colleague, national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie saying: "I am sorry to say that the corruption is worse now than in the Saddam era." No wonder Blair resigned - how do you top helping to make Iraq more corrupt than under Saddam? In his new job, is he planning to make Afghanistan less keen on heavy metal and women's football than under the Taliban?

Or the committee could glance at the billion pounds in illegal payments made to Saudi Arabia in order to secure arms deals for British Aerospace. Unlike Galloway's crime, parliament decided this matter was too trivial to warrant an inquiry. And if they did find them guilty, they'd have probably ordered them to pay it back at one dollar a week.

But instead, the person suspended is the one who opposed these things. The only explanation is the Commons procedures were originally taken from a chapter in Alice in Wonderland, in which you get charged by the authorities for being an un-criminal. And maybe that's the plan for our whole legal system, so you'll be sent to prison for being an un-corrupt arms dealer, or an un-robber, while liberal types complain that prison doesn't work because most un-criminals re-offend, and if you lock someone up for not stealing a car, when they're released they'll do something even worse such as not rob a bank.

Meanwhile robbers and murderers will be allowed to stay free, but only if they remember to ask you to draw a line under robbery and murder, and accept that, hand on heart, you thought that robbery and murder was right at the time.

Oily cretins (latest attack on Galloway)

Oily Cretins - latest attack on Galloway
Tuesday, July 17, 2007.

You remember, I think, some years ago there was a libellous story in the Telegraph. The newspaper, still then under the control of the now convicted felon Conrad Black, ran a story about documents purporting to show that George Galloway was in the pay of Saddam Hussein. Galloway was awarded £150,000 in compensation for the defamatory claims, and also full legal costs, amounting to over £1.5m. Justice Eady defined the claims in the newspaper's coverage as containing four basic claims that any ordinary reader would take away:

a) Mr Galloway had been in the pay of Saddam Hussein, secretly receiving sums of the order of £375,000 a year;

b) He diverted monies from the oil-for-food programme, thus depriving Iraqi people, whose interest he had claimed to represent, of food and medicines;

c) He probably used the Mariam Appeal as a front for personal enrichment;

d) What he had done was tantamount to treason.

This was libellous, and these remain defamatory claims to make. However. Immediately upon hearing of the allegations, a pro-war hard-right Tory MP named Andrew Robathan wrote to the Committee on Standards and Privileges to demand that an inquiry be made into them, reminding them as he did that he had fought in the Gulf War. Subsequently a prolonged inquiry was held into this matter, and the Committee has now concluded that George Galloway will be suspended for 18 days from the House of Commons for "damaging the reputation of the House".

This may seem curious. After all, the Commissioners accept Eady's definition of the libellous claims, and the Commissioner for Parliamentary Standards either acknowledges that George Galloway did not personally benefit from "moneys derived from the former Iraqi regime", or accepts that George Galloway did make many declarations of interest over Iraq, eleven times. Further, he finds no instance in which monies from the appeal were improperly spent. There is no suggestion that George Galloway attempted to deceive anyone about his involvement in the Appeal or his interest in the matter. The Commissioner does not believe that George Galloway's views or advocacy were a result of receiving money from Saddam Hussein, because he doesn't accept that George Galloway's views changed or that he received money from Saddam Hussein. The complaint made by Andrew Robathan is clearly unsubstantiated: this should have concluded the matter. So, what gives?

Well, here's a clue: the majority of the Committee voted for the war on Iraq. Two of its members are former chairs of the Labour Friends of Israel. One of them, Kevin Barron MP, played a pivotal role in the witch-hunt of miners’ leader Arthur Scargill in 1990. Seasoned red-baiters and warmongers, then, and they had to find him responsible for something. Here is the basis of the suspension: he called into question the motives of the inquiry and therefore brought the House of Commons into disrepute. That is to say, because he dared to suggest that a committee of ten members of parliament might have a political motive, he is suspended. This is pathetic.

Now, the committee did make other complaints, which Galloway disputes, but they say these would have resulted merely in a request for an apology. Namely, they say, George Galloway: didn't use his parliamentary resources in a "reasonable" fashion by using them to help the Appeal (this is stretching the definition of what is "reasonable", but those are the breaks with a bunch of pro-sanctions, pro-war MPs); didn't cooperate with the inquiry and tried to conceal "the true source of Iraqi funding" from them (in fact, the claim that Galloway didn't cooperate is belied by the record of transactions which is available on the website of the committee, in which the Commissioner notes as late as November 2006 that he was very content with Galloway's cooperation); wasn't quite forthcoming enough about declaring his interests (despite the fact that he did discuss it in the House of Commons numerous times, widely advertised the appeal, held meetings in the house, and consequently was satirically known as 'the MP for Baghdad Central'); did not register the Appeal in the Miscellaneous Category (although as they concede, he was not directed to do so when he consulted the previous Commissioner in 1999). This ragbag of petty complaints is the sum of a great effort made over several years to try and impugn the reputation of an antiwar MP.

Added to it are several bizarre implications, which occur throughout the deliberations, but not in the recommendations. At one point, the Commissioner raised a 'suggestion' that had been made to him that Elaine Galloway, George Galloway's former spouse, received £13,000 in payments from the appeal. The Commissioner then claimed to have 'forgotten' who 'suggested' this to him. This allegation of criminal behaviour rests on the person of Ms E Laing, who received payments from the appeal: the implication was that Ms E Laing could be made to look like 'Elaine'. But, as the Commissioner acknowledges, George Galloway tracked down Ms E Laing and passed on the details to him, and so there is no mystery about who Ms E Laing is and what the sum was paid for (secretarial work), and who paid it (Stuart Halford, since she has his personal assistant). So, this smear was introduced into the proceedings and instead of being removed or clarified, was deemed 'peripheral'. Additionally, a photocopy of a purported "minute" of a meeting between Galloway and Hussein in 2002 was introduced at the last minute, having landed on the commissioner's desk some hours before a meeting with Galloway. It was without any explanation as to its specific provenance or how it remained secret until then. It purports to show Galloway suggesting that some of his work on behalf of the Mariam Appeal might be financed by "an oil-related mechanism". The only possible explanation as to its provenance, provided by Ms Alda Barry, was stricken from the record. She explained that it would have been a tape recording. However, since Galloway supplied the Commissioner with the evidence that there had not and could not have been such a tape recording, a letter of apology was sent by the Commissioner on 17th April 2007 to George Galloway, in which he apologised for having tried to prove that such a tape existed. His report nevertheless left open the 'possibility' of such a tape. We are told that it comes from 'intelligence' and that the commissioners "take the view that the alleged record of the meeting between Mr Galloway and Saddam Hussein in August 2002 is authentic", even though they acknowledge that it has not been "substantiated". Similarly, the Committee members decide, citing only one of the experts who looked at the Telegraph's documents (while ignoring the existence of other forged documents), that on balance they think they're probably not forgeries: whether they are forgeries or not, the information contained in them is certainly untrue, as the Commissioner also concedes. They breach their own standards, too, by insisting on including claims made by utterly discredited witnesses, including one "Tony" Zureikat, whose evidence supposedly supports the claims in the 'minute', but who manages to get the time of the meeting wrong by at least six months (he is vague: it happened in Christimas time or New Year, according to him).

Given that the nature of the evidence they adduce is so flimsy, and so disreputable, the Committee's decisions are naturally sparse. You might have thought that a Committee that was confident in its various assumptions would be a bit more harsh than asking for an apology for not having registered the appeal in Miscellaneous and so on. You might have thought that the basis of a suspension from the House of Commons for bringing it into disrepute would be somewhat stronger than that George Galloway said mean things about the committee's motives. Instead, they have produced a great many conclusions, which proceed from ommissions and distortions, and as such the best that they could do with it was trump up some sort of headline-grabbing charge. How pathetic, and how risible. If the Commissioners don't realise that they have brought themselves into disrepute with this disingenuous charade, this can only further confirm the impermeability of the Westminster village to the real world.

Galloway response to 18-day suspension

17/07/2007
"Once more and yet again I have been cleared of taking a single penny or in any way personally benefiting from the former Iraqi regime through the Oil for Food programme or any other means.

The Commissioner's report states that unequivocally no less than six times. The Commissioner further states that it would be a "travesty" to describe me as a "paid mouth-piece" and that my actions on Iraq stemmed from "deep conviction."

This is therefore an argument about the funding of a political campaign to lift non-military sanctions on Iraq, which killed one million people, and to stop the rush to a war which has cost the lives of hundreds of thousands more.

The Committee appear utterly oblivious to the grotesque irony of a pro-sanctions and pro-war Committee of a pro-sanctions and pro-war Parliament passing judgment on the work of their opponents, especially in the light of the bloody march of events in Iraq since this inquiry began four years ago.

They describe that as questioning their integrity and bringing Parliament into disrepute. The House would do well to honestly calibrate exactly how its reputation on all matters concerning the war in Iraq stands with the public before deciding who precisely has brought it into disrepute.

After a four year inquiry - costing a fortune in public funds - the report asks me to apologise for not registering consistently the Mariam Appeal I established (the Commissioner concedes that I did so, but randomly) and for using House of Commons resources allocated to me to campaign against the policies of those now sitting in judgment on me.

The Committee of MPs acknowledges that "had these been the only matters before us, we would have confined ourselves to seeking an apology to the House."

However, in a surprisingly thin-skinned rejoinder, the MPs complain that because I questioned their impartiality and made trenchant criticisms of evidence and witnesses (which, incidentally, they don’t attempt to refute in most cases) I am to be suspended for 18 days.

I reiterate that the Commissioner is right to state that he found no evidence that I benefited personally in any way from any Iraqi monies and moreover I never asked any of the Mariam Appeal's donors - the King of Saudi Arabia, the Emir of UAE, or Fawaz Zureikat, the chairman of the Appeal - from where they earned the wealth from which they made donations to a campaign to end sanctions and war."

George Galloway MP

George Galloway speech in Parliament, Friday 23 March 2007 on the UK Government cutting back on English lessons to the detriment of disadvantaged minorities, and increasing isolation

UK Parliamentary Debate on "Community cohesion and the English language (Mr George Galloway)", Fri, 23 Mar 2007 2:30 GMT

Click Here to listen to debate (30 minutes)

George on BBC’s "Hard Talk" programme

Click here to watch the full programme, first broadcast on 23 January 2007

"There is no Iraqi government"

George’s speech to the House Of Commons (UK Parliament) on Iraq, 24 January 2007

"The Foreign Secretary says that we stand by our soldiers. We stand by them so much that we pay them so little. We had to give them a Christmas bonus to make up their wages. Their families are claiming means-tested benefits and living in houses that you would not put a dangerous dog in. We send them, ill clad, ill equipped, ill armed, without armour, on a pack of lies into war after war after war."

Click here to see the video of George's speech

Please click here to read George’s full speech to Parliament

George's show now on two nights a week!

George's talkSPORT radio is now on tow nights a week - every Friday and Saturday between 10pm & 1am, UK time.

Get full details here and listen to George’s talkSPORT show archive here

Click here for a stark reminder of the lies they told us to justify their slaughter of Iraqis