Monday 22 February 2016

The Lanchester Review: A London for All

Nick Richardson makes the case for George Galloway as Mayor of London.

Galloway is now the subject of ridiculous inventions such as that hundreds of people walked out of the Grassroots Out rally because he had made an appearance.

Duly corrected in the comments threads of things like Guido Fawkes, Breitbart London and The Spectator, where the punters clearly love him, and even more so following today's laughable attempt to ambush him on The Daily Politics.

By contrast, those same punters have seen straight through Boris Johnson.

John McTernan sets out the coalition that he sees Galloway as seeking to build, uniting the Left and those parts of the self-defining white working class which either no longer identify with it or never did. He seems to be doing all right at it.

"What's the deal with George Galloway and John McTernan?", I was recently asked by a fairly prominent and undeniably well-connected Labour figure who clearly expected me to know the answer.

"He was on the right side in the struggle against nationalist lunacy. And he is a character," McTernan has replied to me on Twitter.

Quite.

9 comments:

  1. A tiny number of people left, mostly to catch trains. The hall remained packed and Galloway was cheered to the echo several times in his brilliant speech, which ended with a standing ovation from everyone present, at least 1500 people.

    Johnson is not going round speaking for Leave at all. He has had his moment on the telly so his "work" is done. But I think he's quite stung no-one even wants him to participate in the campaign itself and we all realise he's a liar.

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  2. Khalid Mahmood, the only Labour MP in Vote Leave, has left it because it is full of racists and xenophobes. Grassroots Out is looking set to be the official campaign. Meaning George in the televised debates, the ones Johnson, Gove and rest have already said they wouldn't do anyway.

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    1. As Nick puts it:

      "He is now, with Nigel Farage, one of the two main public faces of the campaign to leave the anti-democratic European Union, taking up the mantle of the late, great Tony Benn. Already, the media are having to peddle ridiculous lies, such as that hundreds of people walked out of a recent Grassroots Out rally when he appeared on stage at it."

      What really happened is on YouTube, apparently. The days when the BBC could peddle absolutely any old rubbish are long gone.

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    2. Hitchens has the measure of Johnson and Gove: http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2016/02/what-did-they-mean-by-that-the-gove-johnson-riddle.html.

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  3. 5,415 words, David? Worth it, though.

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  4. With Zac Goldsmith reitertating his long-term support for exit from the European Union, that at least makes two candidates who hold that position.

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    1. There's a Kipper as well. Interesting of you to forget that he existed.

      I wouldn't be so sure about Goldsmith. His father (whom I knew very, very slightly) believed in a different EU, not in no EU. And unlike, say, Hilary Benn, Zac Goldsmith has never been known for his original thought.

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