gorgeous George

Just been doing a bit of research on gorgeous George Galloway, who I’d only vaguely heard of before. There’s actually a Wikipedia piece on him. He was born in Dundee, just like me (bet you never thought Luigi was a Scot), and has had a chequered career as a leftist Labourite, before being dumped by the party for making overly virulent statements against the Blairights. He was always a firebrand speaker, but often under suspicion for his financial affairs – no serious misbehaviour has been uncovered though.
Not sure that I entirely agree with all his views – try this one for size:

"I am on the anti-imperialist left." The Stalinist left? "I wouldn't define it that way because of the pejoratives loaded around it; that would be making a rod for your own back. If you are asking did I support the Soviet Union, yes I did. Yes, I did support the Soviet Union, and I think the disappearance of the Soviet Union is the biggest catastrophe of my life. If there was a Soviet Union today, we would not be having this conversation about plunging into a new war in the Middle East, and the US would not be rampaging around the globe."

An odd way of looking at things, to say the least.

I must say that all the biggest catastrophes of my life (apart maybe from the one I'm going through now) have involved women. So much for my political credentials. Omnia vanitas est.

I note that some of Galloway’s speech, most notably the point scored against Donald Rumsfeld, was recycled from another speech given in late 2003 and very favourably reported on by Aljazeera – ‘a historic speech, which could change the face of British politics forever..’. Not bloody likely. But then again, baby steps…