A bit loony is right, but not just for his ridiculous Big Brother appearance. The man is a damned apologist for Islamic extremism. Starting with grovelling at the feet of Saddam in 1994 (and lying about it ever since), years after he had violated the sovereignty of Kuwait and gassed Kurds in Halabja. He also said that it would be “morally justified” and “entirely logical and explicable” for Tony Blair to be assassinated, supportsHamas and Hezbollah and calling this man, a Holocaust denier and man who believes people should be killed for writing novels or drawing cartoons, a “very great man indeed.”
You can’t be a serious person and cast a vote for this man’s party, it’s simply not possible. He is an extreme left-wing fringe crackpot.
Proposing it for the head of government in your own parliamentary democracy, in which you are yourself an elected official, is most definitely a crackpot idea.
Well, say what you like about Blair, but only in the mind of the most paranoid fantasist was he remotely comparable to Saddam. I also don’t think any statesmen in the coalition (although I may be wrong) was arguing that Saddam be assassinated, it’s been an understanding for centuries that even in wars you don’t do this.
This is quite an interesting site (although clearly with an agenda):
Calculates the power of your vote in a first-past-the-post system based on how safe your seat is.
I moved to a new flat a few streets away earlier this year and it seems that in doing so I also moved constituency. Turns out that in moving, my vote became a lot weaker.
while I don’t dispute the rectitude of any of your Galloway hate, I just have to point out, if it needs pointing out again, that Saddam Hussein was not an Islamic extremist in the commonly understood meaning of the phrase.
He wasn’t an Islamic extremist in any commonly understood meaning of the phrase. He abolished sharia courts and replaced them with Western-style secular courts; he was generally much nicer to women than any other Arab leader. Hell, they were even allowed to vote and hold government office… that is, assuming they were Ba’ath Party members.
His constituency has a high muslim population and he was elected at the height of Iraq war anger amongst the populace. He was a one ticket candidate.
His ward is traditionally Labour, so it was a protest against the government, and as a former Labour politician, there may have been a bit of ‘he’s ex-Labour AND anti-war, so probably represents our views best’.
Because what people aren’t realising is that I am not talking about simple concepts like “state of the schools/economy/health service” but rather than somewhat less tangible concept of the national mindset. I am of the opinion that the greed that became so prevalent in the 1980s affected everyone to such a degree that there is no real social conscience anymore in the UK. Everyone simply cares about me, me, me and be damned with anyone else. The socialist parties like Labour used to be ones with that social conscience and I can’t help but feel that as they have distanced themselves from it it shows how far the national mentality is changed.
I would argue that the country in which I live now, Sweden, is due to the more socialist nature far more socially aware. People care about each other more and I feel far more at home in that sort of environment.
You are correct, of course. What I meant was he is an apologist in the sense that he excuses terrorism by claiming it is entirely the fault of the west (which doesn’t explain things like the Casablanca bombings or why Sunni and Shi’a in Iraq blow up each others mosques, like the al-Askari). The fact that he kissed Saddam’s behind is rather a separate point.
I’d echo the points made by Wallenstein and SanVito, as well as adding the old saying that in a democracy people get the governments they deserve. I think voters when we was first elected were largely uniformed. There were no doubt many who genuinely agree with him, he was the ultimate protest vote against Labour.
I’m going to be honest, I don’t really care. All I know is every time I use a Virgin train it arrives and leaves on time, and is modern and at least looks like it’s been cleaned this decade. Same with the rail links between Glasgow and Edinburgh. We’ve got the most regular intercity services in the world, and have a punctuality rate of ~91% (up to 5 min delay for local services, 10 min for national, compared to ~95% in Switzerland, a country famed for its punctuality). Punctuality and delays were bad for a while, yes, but this ignores the massive reconstruction projects on large sections of track (like the West Coast mainline).
Whatever’s happening seems to be working. The idea that we should consider wholesale renationalisation is absurd, and enough to write any candidate off as a 1970s style ideologue. Moaning about trains is the national past time, yet we’ve never had it as good.
At the risk of a hijack, I think you’re completely mistaken. It’s not greed but the idea that ‘the State’ should be doing something and it’s not up to you to do something, the abrogation of responsibility to the State. ‘Yes, I think it’s terrible and the State should do something about it.’ And then there’s the climate of fear: a man who approaches a woman is seen as a potential rapist, an adult who approaches a lone child is seen as a potential child molester / abductor.
Despite all that, my question to myself is would the Tories have fared any better, and is/was the Tory party any “cleaner”, and the answer is a firm “No”.
He won a whole series of elections over a couple of decades as part of two different political parties. How does a fringe crackpot win elections in multiple constituencies for multiple parties over a couple of decades?