George Galloway: Actually, there were many by-elections, some of which produced spectacular results—as spectacular as the one in Bradford West just over a year ago. In any case, is anyone suggesting that Aneurin Bevan did not stand from these Benches and lacerate real war leaders about their conduct of the war? The hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) is a scholar and a gentleman. He knows...
George Galloway: It is a very important qualification. He was—
George Galloway: As would have been what I was going to say about Neddy Scrymgeour, the great temperance MP who was Mr Churchill’s partner in the two-Member constituency at that time. How we could do with some temperance, some prohibition in the House today, at least as far as the hon. Member for Falkirk (Eric Joyce) is concerned.
George Galloway: I happily withdraw the remark. It was unworthy, but I have some history with the hon. Gentleman. I hope you, Mr Speaker, and the House will forgive me for that unworthy detour down Dundee way. My point is that Mr Churchill was a deeply divisive figure. He was a man who changed sides, ratted and re-ratted; a man who was in Parliament, out of it and back again; and a man whose conduct of public...
George Galloway: Indeed, Sir. Of course, the backdrop cannot be separated from the motion. Many watching on the Parliament channel will know what the backdrop is—[Laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen may laugh, but that is because they are not used to being watched on the Parliament channel. Perhaps that is just as well—[Interruption.] They cannot silence me. Some Members are not for turning, and I am one of them....
George Galloway: I would much prefer to give way to the hon. Gentleman than for him to cackle and wobble his ample girth from a sedentary position.
George Galloway: That is actually the best point the hon. Gentleman has made all evening. It just goes to show that points made from one’s feet are usually better than points made from a sedentary—indeed, relaxed—position. It is a fair point that Parliament does not retire for the summer for as long as it did in our long period together, Mr Speaker, in the House of Commons. But facts are chiels that...
George Galloway: Welcomed? My goodness. I do not know where it was welcomed—certainly not by the financial commentators; certainly not by the markets; certainly not by the public; certainly not by the opinion polls—but the Prime Minister has not been able to be questioned about it. The Prime Minister has not been able to be questioned about anything for four weeks, neither domestic nor international. Our...
George Galloway: Thank you, sir. The point is that beatification and canonisation is something that can happen only when there is a consensus. There is no such consensus about the former Prime Minister, yet people are acting, the state is acting. The state broadcaster and now the parliamentary authorities are asking us to accept things that are too close to royal. Mrs Thatcher famously had a slightly fraught...
George Galloway: The world is still divided, as we know. The plight of poor children in that divided world preoccupies tens of thousands of the finest of our citizens. The proximate cause of my applying to speak in this debate, for which I am grateful, was a visit that I had from campaigners from religious organisations and others from Bradford university. The campaign is based around the organisation Enough...
George Galloway: That speech, much of this debate and this Budget demonstrate the parallel universe in which the governing class in this country is living. Earlier in the debate, nearly four hours ago—it feels like four days—we had the full vaudeville, music hall treatment. They chuntered and they chortled and they laughed—how they laughed!—until their tummies wobbled about the state we are in. But...
George Galloway: Do not be hurt by what I said, because it is a qualification to be the Minister for the middle east. It is not the Minister’s fault. Why did the British Government cowardly abstain in the overwhelming vote to recognise Palestine as a member of the United Nations? Why will they not bring sanctions to bear on Israel—like the sanctions they brought to bear on Iran—for holding illegal...
George Galloway: The highlight of my parliamentary career is undoubtedly the wonder goal that I scored for the House of Commons football team at the Stretford end at Old Trafford—the Manchester United theatre of dreams. The goal has passed into history, but less well known is the fact that the little inside forward who supplied the final pass, in a move involving the legends Pat Crerand and Sir Bobby...
George Galloway: I agree wholeheartedly. The Christians in Iraq have effectively been wiped off the map of Iraq. Most of them are in Syria, where they live in daily terror for their churches and of their clergy and devotees being slaughtered by the hand-chopping and throat-cutting al-Qaeda elements to whom we are giving money. However, the hon. Gentleman is wrong—we are already giving them weapons, and we...
George Galloway: It is important that we work with the Government of Yemen, who came to power as a result of a popular revolution against a dictatorship supported by British Governments—this one and the last one. Before I leave the subject of Saudi Arabia, I should say that we have sold it £15 billion of weapons a year. According to a report I have, Saudi Arabia, with which we want to broaden and deepen...
George Galloway: On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I wonder whether you have had time to consider and reflect on the answer that you gave to the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) yesterday in relation to the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso), whose nobility of character is, of course, beyond compare and legendary, as attested to by his bravura performance...
George Galloway: Following yesterday’s announcement, will the Prime Minister adumbrate for the House the key differences between the hand-chopping, throat-cutting jihadists fighting the dictatorship in Mali whom we are now to help to kill, and the equally bloodthirsty jihadists to whom we are giving money, matériel and political and diplomatic support in Syria? Has the Prime Minister read...
George Galloway: New Labour in Bradford has achieved the seemingly impossible by presiding over secondary schools in the city that are even worse than they were when the Conservatives ran them. In the youngest city in England, we are the eighth worst in the country—eighth out of 150. What special measures can the Government take these schools into to save the youngest city in England from the perdition of...
George Galloway: As I was saying, Mr Speaker, there is an iron-clad consensus across the Front Benches of the three main parties about what they call a mission, but which, given the amount of blood on the ground and the rapidly deteriorating military situation, most of us call a war in Afghanistan. In the wake of Ms Gillard’s decision to accelerate the withdrawal of Australian forces from that war, and in...
George Galloway: When identity cards were debated, an hon. Member-indeed one of the most independently-minded Government Members-said that if there had been a free vote, the measure would not pass. Looking at that from the other side, the Member was saying that he would vote for something in which he did not believe, and that he knew was wrong, because it was a whipped vote on an issue of great magnitude. Is...