George Galloway (Bethnal Green & Bow, Respect)

I have spent 10 hours on live phone-in radio this week, in front of hundreds of thousands of listeners— [Interruption.] My pay is in the Register of Members' Interests—I thought Mr. Jones was a friend of mine; it appears that he has joined the legions.

There were 10 hours of live radio, with hundreds of thousands of listeners, and I am here to tell you, in case you do not know, Mr. Speaker, that this report has sunk like a stone and has no credibility among the general public. It is popular in here, I can tell, but it has no credibility among the general public, in part because they suspect that which I am trying to prove to them, if I am able to develop my case.

I am not able to say who leaked the report, Mr. Speaker, because of your ruling and your threat to name me, so I can only say this: it was leaked. I wrote to the Chairman of the Committee complaining about the leak. He replied to me without reference to the fact that it had been leaked. I then replied to him to say how outrageous it was that he had not even referred to the leak, at which point he wrote to me again saying, "I am instituting an inquiry into the leak." But of course the story was leaked on the Sunday before polling day in a by-election in which my party was a contestant.

I just ask you this, and ask you and other Members, Mr. Speaker, to answer it honestly in their hearts: would this Committee have published such a report against the leader of the Conservative, Labour or Liberal Democrat parties two days before polling day in a by-election in London? Every one of you knows that it would not. A kind of freemasonry would apply, and we know about that, Mr. Speaker, you and me— [Laughter.] Of course we know it as victims, not as practitioners of those black arts; we know it as those who have been on the end of their discrimination and bigotry. Does anyone really believe that if this report had been about the leaders of the other parties represented on the Committee, it would have been published two days before polling day? You all know in your hearts that it would not, and it would not therefore have been leaked on the Sunday before polling day.

Now, Mr. Speaker, you will be glad to know that I intend to move on to the report. I warn the House that I have even more to say about that. I am going to start with—I suppose I must call him the hon. Gentleman—the hon. Member for Blaby, on my left, who is moving around the House on manoeuvres, you might say. It was the hon. Gentleman who made the complaint against me. I have here the letter with which he made the complaint:

"Further to our telephone conversation this afternoon, I note that you have yet to receive a request to investigate the extremely serious allegations made by the Daily Telegraph against George Galloway MP.

Since serving in the last Gulf war in 1991, I have been very interested in the situation in Iraq ever since"—

I apologise for his English. He is a soldier. I merely left school at 17, like you, Mr. Speaker, to go and work in a factory—

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