More on Galloway

Well, it's been a week now of George being in the house, and the attempts to attack him are becoming more and more hysterical. The problem is that the establishment press can't use the 'he took money from Saddam' argument anymore, because they'd have to pay even more in libel charges to fund our election campaigns. Without that they have to resort to criticising things that Galloway is actually doing, and that's a bit harder.

So, impressively hypocritically, he is accused of not representing his constituents! After all, the electors of Bethnal Green and Bow were clearly casting a vote for a pro-war MP who would support the selling off of their council houses and privatising of their schools. When Galloway goes on Big Brother to use it as a platform to spout anti war, anti privatisation and pro Palestinian rhetoric they no doubt hate it.

There are more serious arguments of course, but they are all so stunningly easily rebutted you wonder how Blair gets away with it. Oh yeah, the press.

So let's start: His constituents, according to Vikram Dodd in the Guardian, could not get hold of him if they wanted his help with something. Well, I could have established that by switching over to E4 on my telly, but good old Vikram has a thorough ring round to establish that, no, a message could not be got to George. Except that's not the whole story. Respect, as Rob Hoveman makes clear, did hold a surgery that day for constituents, which is more than most constituency parties would manage. It seems that certain journalists can't get their head round the idea that Respect is a party with an actual social base, and serious grass roots activists, making inroads into East London by representing the people New Labour has abandoned. They'd rather it was all about George.

Then there's the, increasingly notorious Crossrail claims. This is the main stick that New Labour drones are using to beat Galloway with. He has, apparently missed an important debate on Crossrail, something that will directly affect his constituency. Before I point out the absurdity it might be worth reflecting on the hypocrisy here. A government introduces a bill that is potentially extremely damaging to some of the most vulnerable parts of scoiety, and suddenly it's George's fault for not being around to argue. But anyway, he has argued against it on a number of occasions, and will again, when the actual bill comes to parliament. All he has missed is a select committee meeting that he could not attend anyway. More on the website.

The biggest issue for Galloway right now has to be Channel 4's editorial decision to edit out most of his political comments, which Zoe Williams commented pretty well on in the Guardian. This is allegedly about balance, which is fair enough, to the extent that some laws exist. But surely all balance is relative. Would a documentary about the holocaust require a fascist to 'balance out the debate'? I seem to remember C4 showing Fahrenheit 911 recently, did they need to balance that? I find it hard to believe that George would have agreed to such censorship beforehand, indeed given his stated intentions it seems more likely that the reverse is true. However, I do think it was naive of him to think any differently, and that is why I ultimately think it was a bad decision.

George hasn't killed anyone and he hasn't suddenly become a war-monger. He hasn't agreed to sell of council housing, or privatise schools. He hasn't sold out workers, or supported attacks on civil liberties. He's appeared on a TV programme. I would rather that he had been on the picket lines on Monday morning, supporting the tube strike. I would rather he was at this demo, supporting Tower Hamlets' council's disgusting victimising of Eileen Short. But he wasn't and he won't be. More importantly, though, Respect representatives will be. What we are building is not just George, and people in London are beginning to realise that.