George Galloway is back... but not for long

So. George Galloway is once again a member of parliament. In characteristic form, the preening narcissist would like us to think that Westminster is collectively quaking in its boots at the return of some kind of noble crusader, representing the “real people” of the nation.

He is right that Westminster is aghast at his return, but wrong about the cause – people feel about Galloway the same way they do about a wet shit on the pavement in which they have just stepped. Not only has stepping in it made your day immeasurably worse, but you now have to get rid of the damn thing, too.

The voters of Rochdale will come to regret their choice, forced as it was by Labour disowning their candidate and the other parties having no ability to seize upon the gap that it left. Every constituency that has elected Galloway in the 21st century has rapidly come to regret its decision.

When Galloway was MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, his most notable achievement was appearing on Celebrity Big Brother – while parliament was in session – and lapping up imaginary milk from the lap of Rula Lenska.
Doing outside work while taking the taxpayer’s cash was hardly out of the norm for him, though – but his other paymasters were far less edifying than Channel 4. During his short tenure as MP for Bradford West, Galloway made a six-figure annual income through hosting regular programmes for the Iranian state-owned broadcaster Press TV and the Russian propaganda channel Russia Today.

Having never met a dictator he didn’t like – especially if there was a chance of a personal payday for himself – Galloway felt little need to establish himself in his day job before cashing in. As a result, his tenure as MP for Bradford West (and as Respect party leader) was a short one, with the constituency roundly rejecting him at the next general election.

Expect little to change this time. Rochdale has a cursed record of recent MPs, and has surely hit a new low this time, however short-lived Galloway’s run is likely to be. Some will blame the voters, but in reality this misadventure is the fault of the Labour party, in the latest of a long run of needless misadventures.

Labour’s persistently high polling numbers have – people across the party complain – convinced several people in Keir Starmer’s office that they are generational political talents, with genius that is unappreciated in either the media or across Westminster.

This hubris has contributed to a series of unforced errors which, while not yet impacting the polls, bode poorly for the future of the party. In the case of Rochdale, the main error was to needlessly rush the selection of the party’s candidate, forced by a convention-breaching decision to move the writ launching the by-election before the funeral of the former incumbent MP.

Had the party not needlessly rushed the process, there was at least a better chance for Azhar Ali’s remarks or record to have emerged before he was locked in place as the party’s candidate – though given the leaked recording conveniently emerged in the media just as he became impossible to replace, there is of course a chance that they would have been stuck with him anyway.

It is important not to over-read this result. George Galloway is a non-entity, and a viciously unpleasant one at that. His return to Westminster is unwelcome, but unimportant. There are no read-across lessons from Rochdale for politics as a whole, as opinion polls make clear.

It would reflect well on Labour to apologise for paving the way for another brief Galloway return, but it won’t matter if they don’t do so. Westminster will have to tolerate the twat in a hat for a few months, and then he’ll be gone again. Let us hope to hear as little from him as possible during that time.