Follow @RPJblog
George Galloway has set his eyes on a seat in Glasgow, and he thinks that his super leftist powers are enough to land him the win. What he cannot see is that Glasgow won’t have him because he’s selling Westminster.
George Galloway’s name is muck in the Yes movement, and for good reason, but outside of the independence debate I have to confess to being a bit of a Galloway fan. That doesn’t mean I love him or that right now I would even consider lending him my vote. All I am saying is that he has his moments. Few can fault his quite remarkable skills as an orator, and fewer still will be foolhardy enough to go toe-to-toe with him in a shouting match. George – on his good days – certainly has his charms, and if nothing else he is a character who adds some much needed colour to Scottish and Westminster politics.
Where I find fault with him is that he is a shameless opportunist. Natalie McGarry has been charged in suspicion of committing fraud and breach of trust, leaving her Glasgow East seat under a cloud of uncertainty. My own thoughts are with Natalie and her family, and all of those concerned. This is an unpleasant matter, but – as always in these things – I will, like Galloway, presume innocence until proven otherwise. It does however raise the prospect of a by-election for the seat and Scottish Labour hopes to claw back a little more leverage.
Of course Labour in Scotland doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of parking a bum on that seat anytime soon. Bernard Madoff has more of a chance of winning Glasgow East than anyone associated with Scotland’s Blairite and unionist party. Glasgow demands an MP of proven leftist credentials, and this has excited the imagination of George. He’s a leftist after all, and he reckons his leftier than thou is what’s needed to begin the counter revolution against the SNP. He’s optimistic is George.
What he doesn’t see, however, is that left politics in Scotland are no longer the British working class left politics of the 1970s and 80s. Sure, Scotland is hankering for good left-leaning politicians and a good measure of social justice, but Scotland has realised that left politics alone are simply not enough to gain what Scotland so sorely needs. Scotland’s left has come to see that in the life of wider British politics it is powerless, and politics without a hope of power is worse than useless. Power in Scotland and power for Scotland can only now be achieved with our full separation from Westminster and the horribly rightist ambitions of London rule. Sadly George rejects this, and so Glasgow will continue to reject him.
Random Public Journal 