End of the Mother of all Talkshows? Not likely!

After a run of more than four years the highly popular radio show - The Mother of All Talkshows - has been killed off by the TalkSport management.

I believe this is a business mistake, but then I don't run the radio station and such decisions are not mine to take. I will always be grateful to TalkSport for giving me the opportunity to launch the Mother of All Talkshows, and particularly to Bill Ridley and Sean Dilley who got me started there. Both taught me a lot - and Ridley encouraged what became my trademark - a stand up delivery which gave the thing its public platform feel.

Islamophobia is a threat to democracy

We are concerned by the rise of Islamophobia, the negative coverage of Muslims in the media, the violent street mobilisations of extreme rightwing organisations like the English Defence League, and the rising electoral support for the British National party (The battle for Barking, Weekend, 13 March). Following Channel 4’s recent inflammatory documentary, Britain’s Islamic Republic, which saw concentrated attacks on the East London Mosque, the English Defence League marched through central London with placards including the demand “Close the East London Mosque now”.

The East End of London is not new to having its communities attacked by fascists and the media. The 1930s saw the Battle of Cable Street when Oswald Mosley's blackshirts attempted to march into the Jewish community in the area. We cannot allow this terrible history to repeat itself. Further, the documentary, and articles since, have attacked the participation in politics by the Muslim community. We cannot stand by and watch this continue without remark or action.

Close the Israeli embassy

I called for immediate action over Israel's forging of British passports when this first became apparent. The belated expulsion of a senior Mossad agent from London is welcome, but is nowhere near enough.

The British government is warning UK citizens not to entrust their travel documents with Israeli authorities. That means that despite pleas from the Foreign Office it acknowledges that criminal copying of passports by Israel remains a threat.

Every British citizen travelling in the Middle East has been endangered by the actions of Mossad operating from the Israeli embassay in London. Protecting British citizens abroad demands nothing less than closing that centre of espionage at home.

Climate Chaos - letter to the East London Advertiser

Dear Editor

Last week I took part in one of the few votes in Parliament that really matter. I voted to limit climate-damaging emissions from new Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) power stations. Disgracefully this vital clause was lost by just 8 votes, 244 to 252.

It beggars belief that the Labour government saw fit to oppose this obvious measure. We are about to give the power companies billions to develop this new technology. Surely we must impose strict targets on them. Yet Parliament witnessed a sorry parade of New Labour poodles dutifully voting to take these bloated multinationals on trust - Jim Fitzpatrick among their number.

George vs Jim on the BBC

George Galloway went head to head with Jim Fitzpatrick on BBC1 London this Sunday.


You can watch on the BBC website here though the good bit starts at 38 minutes and 30 seconds from the beginning (if you want to avoid spending too much time with Nick Clegg.)

Tory-Labour witch hunt claims first Muslim victim

The witch hunt against Muslims in Tower Hamlets, and above all in the council, has claimed its first victim. Lutfur Ali is the highest ranking council official of Bangladeshi origin in Britain. Appointed in 2008, he was immediately made a target by Tory leader Peter Golds. Golds went on national TV and gave selective private information to attack Lutfur’s appointment, the first appointment to a senior council position in Tower Hamlets of a Muslim from the Bangladeshi community.

Now Lutfur Ali has been forced to resign after this vicious campaign against him and the Muslim community in Tower Hamlets. The witch hunt of the Muslim community has been orchestrated by the Conservative paper the Telegraph with the help of Jim Fitzpatrick MP, others in Labour like Helal Abbas, and Conservatives like Golds and Tim Archer.

Lutfur Ali has done a very good job since he was appointed and is praised by the chief executive Kevan Collins in the council’s press release on the matter. He has been put under terrible pressure.

George Galloway, MP and Respect candidate against Fitzpatrick, commented: “We can expect more of this as some in Labour and the Tories play the race card trying to divide Muslim from non-Muslim and divide the Muslim community itself. All to boost their miserable electoral prospects.”

Councillor Abjol Miah, leader of the Respect group and parliamentary candidate for Bethnal Green and Bow, added: “We will not be divided. And we will not let them witch hunt Muslims out of the Town Hall or anywhere else.”

Sinister Parallels of Hatred

There are weeks to go before a general election and the main parties are struggling. Cue the filthy politics of scapegoating and divide and rule. 

If it were only the fascists of the British National Party and their street-fighting associates in the English Defence League it would be bad enough. 

But so widespread and respectable has demonising Britain’s Muslim and immigrant communities become that unscrupulous mainstream politicians are tempted to slide from the gutter into that sewer. 

The ground is sadly fecund for them, fertilised by mountains of manure from not only the right but from people who consider themselves liberals. This is one of the especially pernicious features of Islamophobia - racism against Muslims.

George Galloway General Election Fundraiser

George Galloway is seeking his 6th successive election win and invites all his friends to attend this special fund-raising event.

Venue: Porchester Hall, Porchester Road, London W2 5HS
Date: Sunday, 11th April 2010
Time: 7.00pm.
Tickets: £50

You can buy a ticket online using your credit/debit card or Paypal account here.You may book through GGelectionfund@hotmail.co.uk or contact Zak on 07908 959 982

Cheques to be made payable to George Galloway Election Fund, 130 Longbridge Road, Barking, Essex IG11 8SL

Buy Tickets Here

One Ticket £50.00 Two Tickets £100.00 Three Tickets £150.00 Four Tickets £200.00

Five point plan to protect services

Abjol Miah has written to the East London advertiser outlining Respect's five point programme to protect our local services in Tower Hamlets.

To the editor,

There can be no doubt that local government spending is going to face a massive attack over the next few years. Professor Tony Travers, the expert on local government, estimates cutbacks of up to 20% are likely as central government tries to reduce the massive deficit brought on by the collapse of the financial sector. Council officers are projecting an £18 million council deficit next year, again the year after and even worse in 2014.

The council is legally obliged to balance its budget. Council tax, which only accounts for 15% of council revenue, is likely to be capped at a low rate of increase and is fiercely regressive and unfair anyway.

Therefore, massive cutbacks are in prospect.

Respect has a five point programme to address the impending crisis in our local authority finances.

Brown's predictable and weary defence of the Iraq disaster

It was as anticlamactic as Gordon Brown's long coveted ascension to Number 10 has become.

Here was a chance, after all, for him to put some distance between Labour and the disastrous decision to follow George W Bush into a war of regime-change, signed in other people's blood at Crawford, Texas, in 2002.

Instead, Brown trotted out the weary apologias which so few in our country any longer believe: that the decision was based on definitive intelligence, which the spooks dispute, and had the backing of international law, which the lawyers refute.

That much was predictable; it was unfeasible that he would either denounce his predecessor or claim he was merely a dessicated calculating machine, whirring away in a darkened Treasury in complete ignorance of the greatest blunder of our age being hatched just opposite

But, as with Tony Blair, the most alarming aspect of his answers was not about what had gone before - the public mind is settled on that, in any case, no matter what scholastic distinctions the Chilcot report finally makes. It was the threat of more to come.

Blair mentioned Iran 58 times. Brown's refrain was "rogue states". Those of us who marched against war on Iraq in 2002 were told we were being precipitate. It should now be clear to all that the die was already cast. Taken with the rising drumbeat from Tel Aviv and Washington, Brown's testimony should be taken as a serious portent of yet more mayhem.

Galloway demands Labour sacks agent after islamophobic and racist comments

George Galloway has written to Labour's General Secretary Ray Collins, MP Jim Fitzpatrick and Labour candidate Rushanara Ali, demanding Tower Hamlets Labour Party election agent and council candidate Graham Taylor should be sacked and disciplinary action taken against him and other members. This follows Islamophobic and racist comments appearing on Taylor's Facebook.

Taylor attended a meeting on election arrangements at Tower Hamlets Town Hall with the chief executive Kevan Collins, chief legal officer Isabella Freeman and chief elections officer Louise Stamp, on Monday evening.

Before going to the meeting he put out the following message on his Facebook group - "Graham Taylor is off to that centre of Islamic fundamentalism - Tower Hamlets Town Hall". A number of his Facebook friends then responded, including former councillor and Labour's council candidate for Stepney ward Judith Gardner. Gardner wrote "Give em hell!". Another friend wrote the disgusting racist comment: "Bring some pork scratchings" and another "Pork!".

"This is a disgraceful example of the Islamophobia and racism now infecting parts of Tower Hamlets Labour Party," said an outraged George Galloway. "The comments were made just before the Dispatches programme on Monday, which a number of Labour members co-operated with and in some cases inspired. These comments should have no place anywhere, never mind in a party claiming its commitment to opposing racism and respect for people of faith.

"I am demanding that Taylor is sacked as Rushanara Ali's election agent and his nomination for council candidate withdrawn. He is clearly not a fit and proper person to hold office in the Labour Party. And former councillor Judith Gardner should also be stood down. I don't know if the other contributors are Labour Party members but, if they are, they also should be subject to action by the Labour Party, up to and including their expulsion."