You didn’t think I’d let this one slip by did you?

As you can imagine, I was bitterly disappointed to learn that George Galloway might be facing an 18 day suspension from Parliament for “damaging the reputation of the house” with his comments following the inquiry into his Mariam Appeal charity. You see, I originally misread the story and thought the standards watchdog had recommended that he be barred for 18 months. So I was deeply saddened to learn the harsh reality. George Galloway not attending the House of Commons for 18 days? Who would notice? He’s barely there anyway, busy as he is promoting his spoken word tours, hosting a radio talk show, appearing on trash television or praising suicide bombers.

He defended himself with the usual old bluster, highlighting the ‘irony’ that a ‘pro-war’ Parliament had attacked the leader of the ‘anti-war’ party. Except, of course (and we should never forget this) Galloway and the other contemptible clowns that make up the Socialist Worker’s Party Stop The War Coalition are not anti-war at all. They are in fact very pro-war. They just happen to prefer the jihadist murderers that make up the other side.

I’m not condoning sectarian violence, BUT….

It wasn’t me. I promise.

But what savagery. He was kicked, you know. In both ankles.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder

Hot Jiminy! Two weeks without a post! Empires have risen and fallen in less time. Some have even fallen then risen again. While others still have risen, fallen, risen a bit then fallen again before finally rising back to their former glory. It’s a long time. Fourteen days. A fortnight. Half a lunar month (give or take). A goddamm eternity in blogging terms.

It used to be customary on this blog to fill the vacuum created by a lengthy absence with a catch-up post, consisting of bullet points on various events that have occurred in the interim. Here then, in recognition of said custom, are some of the news nuggets of late, plus whatever else happens to be on my mind today.

• Firstly, happy new year to you all. As you may be aware, I do not recognise January and February as components of the calendar. Instead, after December 31st, we descend into a two month period of ghastliness known as ‘Helluary’. This period has finally passed. We are now in March, the days are getting longer and the year can finally begin. Rejoice.
• The official population of London is approximately seven and a half million people. Am I the only one convinced that it must have risen to ten million in the last year with an extra 2.5 million brought in to try and thrust free newspapers into my hand? You can’t walk more than about two metres in this city without someone shouting “London Lite!” or “London Paper!” into your ear. Here’s an experiment: walk out onto any street in central London with a brick in your hand. Close your eyes, spin around for thirty seconds to lose all sense of direction, then chuck the brick anywhere you choose. I guarantee it will hit somebody handing out a free paper. They’re everywhere! I often find myself taking one of the damn things just to roll it up and use it as a baton to keep the others at bay. Walking to Cannon Street station after work is like doing a news vendor slalom. Fuck off!
• In breaking news today, Mohammed Al Fayed has been successful in his efforts to have the inquest into the deaths of Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed be presented to a jury. If this is what it takes to put this whole tedious saga to bed once and for all, then let’s have it. But what a waste of taxpayer’s money and court time. And why, when the man is convinced that it was all a conspiracy by the ‘Establishment’, does he think that putting the case through one of the machines of said ‘Establishment’ is going to produce an outcome more to his satisfaction? Surely the jury would be handpicked by Prince Phillip and made up of agents from MI5, MI6, Mossad, CIA, The Elders of Zion, CI5, ITV, MTV plus perhaps Agent Smith from The Matrix? Deluded fantasist.
• Speaking of deluded fantasists, did anyone else read these pieces by George Monbiot on Comment is Free taking on the pea brained, conspiracy peddling fuckwits who refuse to accept the actual version of events concerning 9/11? I don’t usually much care for Monbiot’s opinion pieces, but on this subject he is so obviously correct it’s barely worth listing the arguments. If you want to depress yourself, read through some of the comments. Whilst there are plenty of sane people amongst them, the number of commenters who actually believe all, some or even any of the ludicrous accusations is genuinely alarming. I’d put 9/11 conspiracy theorists in the same category as creationists who deny evolutionary theory: daydreamers who think that wheeling out a couple of contrarian ‘experts’ lends some validity to their specious and deluded fantasies. My favourites are the ones who list dozens and dozens of ‘sources’, as if the sheer volume of their reference points makes their case more convincing. Kind of like living in a palace made of poo, then adding a new poo tower and thinking that it makes the place more habitable when, in fact, it’s just adding to the sheer amount of poo that you’ve constructed.
• Speaking of poo and Comment Is Free, our old friend George Galloway is currently generating the most comments with this piece about how everyone’s being so nasty to his good friend Hugo Chávez, the ‘president’ of Venezuela. The biggest section in Galloway’s address book must be under the heading of ‘Despots, Tyrants and Ideologues’. Saddam Hussein, Fidel Castro, Bashar al-Assad, Chávez: do you think the day will ever come when George prostrates himself before a national leader who was, I don’t know, actually democratically elected? Neither do I. A plague on his house.

That is all.

And we’re back!

So, back to crushing reality then. Once more, we land headfirst in the cold, dark, featureless barren wasteland that is January. It’s just awful. But you’ve got to laugh, haven’t you?

The review of 2006 isn’t going to happen now. It’s too daunting a task, and I’ve forgotten everything that happened last year anyway. Let us press onwards.

P.S. For those who’ve been itching to know, The Liberal Elite Twat Of The Year Award for 2006 goes to….. George Galloway. Again. Who else was it ever going to be? For those of a betting nature, he’s already looking a dead cert for 2007 too. Not that he’s been in the news yet, but he will be. He will be.

Caveat lector. This is a rather rambling piece.

As anyone who has ever tried to do so will attest, writing a blog can be hard work sometimes. You have to juggle the desire to write with other commitments and there are times when there is loads going on, you’re itching to say something about it, but you just don’t have the time. Other times, you feel like writing, but there are no stories around that really inspire you. Another scenario is when there are loads of things going on that would usually set you off, but you cannot summon up the energy for some reason. I’d say I’m experiencing the third situation now. This is a consequence of writing a mainly political blog: you’re really at the mercy of the current news agenda. I could write about other things I suppose, but I tend not to because I don’t think that’s why people come here and, secondly, I’m not terribly interested in writing about things going on in my personal life. I don’t treat this blog like a diary. Some people do, and that’s great, but it isn’t for me.

So why am I writing this at all? Because sometimes, as I’m sure other bloggers will agree, there is a clock ticking in your head, counting the days and hours since the last time you published anything, and after a while it can start to bug you. So here I am on a regular Sunday afternoon, reeling off thoughts purely to satisfy the little voice in my head constantly reminding me that I need to write something, anything, today.

But there are plenty of stories out there, mostly of a religious nature it seems. And perhaps that is putting me off writing about them: it just gets me worked up and, in any case, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. But what choice do I have?

So come with me while I load my shotgun and head for the nearest cylindrical container housing cold-blooded aquatic vertebrates.

News about veils continue to dominate, in particular the story of a teaching assistant suspended for refusing to remove it in class. Yet more evidence that this country is hell bent on persecuting Muslims at every opportunity. Because clearly, there are no practical considerations to be taken into account here. In a job where being able to communicate with young children is something of a prerequisite, it makes sense that the person be covered from head to toe. I’ve decided to wear a motorcycle helmet to work from tomorrow. Or maybe a Ku Klux Klan outfit. And who is my employer to dictate otherwise?

Elsewhere, the cabinet is split over new laws for gay rights, after protests from religious organisations terrified about sodomy in the streets, endless Judy Garland conventions in their churches or Graham Norton having the right to defecate in Westminster Cathedral. Or something. I stopped reading halfway through, so if anyone wants to tell me what it’s about, please do so.

Meanwhile, according to the Muslim Council of Britain, Ruth Kelly, the Communities Secretary, is pandering to an ‘Islamophobic agenda’ following the government’s decision to cut funding and official ties with their organisation. Why was our government helping to fund this group in the first place? Or any other religious promotion group for that matter. Not in my name.

British Airways, meanwhile, have stoked controversy by sending home a worker for refusing to conceal a Christian cross while on duty; a contravention of their uniform code. A code that extends to all religious clothing and paraphernalia, with the exception of Sikh turbans and Muslim hijabs. Ann Widdecombe has stated that Christians are “being persecuted” in the current environment. Which is patently as nonsensical as the claims from the Muslim Council of Britain or this opinion piece in The Sunday Times arguing that ‘Muslims are the new Jews’. Although I suspect that the stance by British Airways is driven by a misguided PC belief that one of their employees displaying Christian iconography might be deemed ‘insulting’ to non-Christian customers and co-workers. The only thing this policy insults is everyone’s intelligence. I expect that the vast majority of people could not care less and there is a world of difference between wearing a piece of jewellery and wearing a niqab in the name of your faith: namely that the former does not prohibit the wearer from doing their job effectively and the latter, if said job involves meeting and greeting with people, does. A fairly simple, common sense position to take on the whole issue.

And it is all about practicality rather than discrimination. If I were to wear a small cross around my neck to work tomorrow, my employers wouldn’t be concerned. They might, however, object if I were to commandeer the boardroom and slaughter an ox as an offering to the lord almighty. Both could be defended as representations of my personal religious affiliation, but the latter is clearly impractical in the workplace, not to mention incredibly messy. And I know this from bitter experience.

Meanwhile, that execrable little turd George Galloway stuck his snout into the trough at the Respect party’s annual conference yesterday, proclaiming that anti-Muslim comments are the last “respectable” form of racism in our society. This from a man whose party used Oona King’s mixed race, Jewish heritage as a race-baiting electoral tactic while competing for the seat of Bethnal Green and Bow in the 2005 general election. Money quote from his speech: “It’s a disgusting, ugly sight and sound to see or listen to.” You certainly are George, you certainly are. Besides, Islam isn’t a race.

I can’t think of anything else to say. Which brings me back to where I began. I’m going to bed.

Galloway watch and the left’s continuing love of tyrants

The Rt. Dishonourable George Galloway was in the news again this weekend, this time for comments he made in an interview with GQ magazine (question to GQ: why?) stating that it would be “morally justified” to assassinate Tony Blair and that it would be morally equivalent to Blair “ordering” Iraqi deaths. Not that GG would personally favour such an action, you understand:

“Such an operation would be counterproductive because it would just generate a new wave of anti-Muslim, anti-Arab sentiment whipped up by the press. It would lead to new draconian anti-terror laws, and would probably strengthen the resolve of the British and American services in Iraq rather than weaken it.”

So basically, he doesn’t advocate the assassination of democratically elected leaders on the basis that it would be bad PR.

Speaking of draconian, Galloway subsequently defended his comments from Cuba, where he has been schmoozing with Fidel Castro, the unelected dictator who personally oversees the dismal totalitarian communist regime that his nation’s 11.3 million inhabitants are forced to endure. This communist dystopia where opposition parties are forbidden, basic human rights are ignored and pro-democracy campaigners are thrown into prison for life is so often held up as a beacon of ‘working socialism’. Never understood that one at all. Just because of the state-funded health and education system provided by the bankrupt (ideologically and economically) government? Wowee.

Yet another great example of leftists taking sides with monsters (I’m saying that Galloway is the leftist and Castro is the monster here – although there’s a strong case for the reverse also). Galloway, of course, has a well documented track record in this area. He has described Castro as the living person he most admires, but of course it wasn’t that long ago he was giving Saddam Hussein and his butcher sons colonic irrigation with his tongue and fingers. Combine all this with his appearance on Celebrity Big Brother earlier this year and the evidence is more overwhelming than ever: there is no barrel this man will not scrape, no backside he will not kiss, no indignity he will not endure as long as he is in the public eye.

Equally atrocious were the recent comments of London’s very own fuckwit-in-chief Ken Livingstone who, on a visit to Beijing in April this year, compared the Tiananmen Square massacre to the Poll Tax riots. Contemptible. More recently, courtesy of Mayor Ken, we have been subjected to a visit from bandit-turned-socialist, self-styled saviour of Venezuela Hugo Chávez (it wasn’t an official state visit either – our esteemed mayor arranged and passed the cost onto us lucky taxpayers). Chávez was received by a drooling mass of soft-headed admirers at London’s City Hall. Why? As far as I can tell, for little reason other than the fact that he nationalised his country’s oil industry and hates George Bush. Chávez, like Castro, presents a ‘man of the people’ image whilst simultaneously crushing dissent and free expression in the name of socialist revolution. He also considers Robert Mugabe to be an ‘ally’ and a ‘true freedom fighter’. Enough said.

Why do the hard left laud these tyrants? Castro, Chávez, Che Guevara, Lenin. As role models go, this lot are no better than Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin or Pol Pot.

Guess who’s back, back again?

Damn! How did I miss this? It seems our old chum George Galloway has been given his own slot on Talksport radio and the first show went out on Saturday. Good to see yet more steadfast commitment to his responsibilities to the people of Bethnal Green and Bow.

Here’s some blurb from Talksport’s website, babbling excitedly about their sensational signing:

‘Gorgeous’ George has shared company with some of the world’s most colorful (sic) figures like former president of Iraq, Suddam (sic) Hussein, and Cuban chief, Fidel Castro and will tackle both political and non-political topics during the two-hour current affairs programme, inviting listeners to join in and air their views. 

Invading neighbouring countries, gassing your own population and overseeing a brutal police state make you a ‘colourful’ figure? The sheer incongruity of this facile drivel leaves me lost for words. Check out the spelling mistakes too: clearly there are some real intellectual heavyweights at this station.

Meanwhile, according to Egregious George:

“I intend to make this the most talked-about talk show on radio – I think I have a pretty good track record of stimulating debate. . . . . Most politicians – and most politics – are boring. I don’t think even my worst enemy could call me that.” 

Perhaps not. But we could call you a boorish, moustachioed fuckwit.

Galloway can be heard on Talksport 1089/1053AM every Saturday and Sunday 8pm-10pm, should anyone take leave of their senses and fancy listening to his Trotskyist horseshit.

Personally I’d rather take a hammer to my own knees.

He who must not be named

I said I’d stop writing about George Galloway for a while, and I am holding true to that promise. However, for those that need a fix, I thoroughly recommend you read Charlie Brooker’s column in the Guardian today, where he shares his thoughts on our favourite AWOL parliamentarian. Hilarious.

Go on now go, walk out the door. Just turn around now, ’cause you’re not welcome anymore.

Watching George Galloway being evicted last night was a highly enjoyable experience. Apparently it was the loudest round of boos ever received by a Big Brother evictee. You can say what you like about the British public, but they clearly recognise a shit when they see one.

He seemed genuinely bewildered by the amount of coverage he had received while being inside and I’m convinced, when they showed him the headlines from the newspapers about his antics, I saw shock and fear in his hateful little eyes. Bless. He was also reported to be dismayed that Channel 4 had chopped all his political speeches from being broadcast. Arf! So much for that then. Still, at least he achieved his main objective of reaching the “mass, young, overwhelmingly not-yet-political audience” that primarily watches the show.

Or perhaps not. A text message vote held on Chris Moyle’s Radio 1 breakfast show yesterday asked listeners (predominantly in their twenties) whether they liked or hated George Galloway. 19,661 people responded in the space of 20 minutes – 18,189 (a whopping 92.5%) of whom expressed a preference for the latter. I also laughed when Chantelle, a 22 year old dizzy fellow housemate on CBB, asked one of the others: “What’s the name of George’s band?” So after nearly three weeks in George’s constant company, she’s not even aware that George is a politician. Presumably, in her head, he’s some ageing C-list entertainer.

Mission accomplished then.

Right, that’s it. No more about this man from now on. I promise.

Maybe.

The Sadness Of King George

Great news. George Galloway is officially the Most Hated Man In Britain™. The whole nation is now fully aware that he is a duplicitous, petty little man with no regard for anyone other than himself. He alienates everyone through his arrogance and vanity and has no redeeming features whatsoever. When he comes out of the Big Brother house tonight, to a chorus of boos, he will meet this realisation head on. Oh, he’ll claim to be the victim of a conspiracy, selective editing, etc, but nobody is going to believe that.

Later, when he gets home and reflects on the situation, he will realise what an abject failure the exercise has been. The whole grisly spectacle has trashed his standing (well, what there was of it) and left him a figure of ridicule (not that he wasn’t already as far as I’m concerned). Alas, not even a saucer of milk and a nice bit of fish will lift his spirits, especially when he learns that he may face another enquiry into his dealings, this time from the serious fraud office, concerning alleged receipts of large sums of cash from his old chum Saddam Hussein.

So a rough welcoming committee awaits our favourite celebrator of tyrants. Couldn’t happen to a nicer chap. I’m not usually one to kick a man when he’s down, but it’s difficult to resist when it’s this much fun.

*UPDATE*
Although the court of appeal has ruled in GG’s favour in his libel case with The Daily Telegraph.