Friday 6 April 2012

Galloway is pretty fly for a white guy, he says

One J. Howarth (prop. Public Impact Limited, responsible for the racist campaign literature in Church ward, Reading) has had this to say about the Bradford West by-election victory for George Galloway. A little light fisking.


George Galloway won Bradford West because he was the best candidate by a country mile. Does that always happen John? If not why not? That doesn’t mean he will make the best MP, of course. The two things are very different. No shit, Sherlock And for the terminally warped trolls in Web World who think that means I agree with Mr G on lots of things – it doesn’t. A little thinking and all the ingredients for an upset were present. In brief here’s why:
  • Where do you disagree with him John?  On Jews?  Gaza?  What?
  • ...Some communities from the 50s-60s wave of immigration engage or otherwise with UK politics on a UK level, but in many Pakistani populations the politics of ‘the old country’ and the Muslim world still matter a lot. Bollocks.  That's not the problem. Councils handing responsibility over to the mosque committees instead of working for jobs and training for ethnic minority youth has caused this....
  • Bradford West’s community politics is by no means unfamiliar. Having represented an area with a substantial Pakistani population myself, and run away from constituents as soon as anything got difficult I would question whether a candidate being Pakistani embroiled in the internal politics of the ‘community’ is necessarily an advantage? So candidates should be selected on the basis of ethnicity not suitability should they?  Oh. Imran Hussain lost in Bradford West because he was Pakistani?  Not because Galloway was the best candidate, as you've just said?  No.  It's about race.  We see. Not always.
  • It is also a sad fact that there remains, though some don’t like to admit it, a section of the white population who prefer not to vote for a Muslim. Ethnicity again.  This really matters to  you, doesn't it John?. The former MP, Marsha Singh, was a Sikh. He still is a Sikh.  A secular, non-turban-wearing one.  And thousands of Muslims and white people voted for him...
  • Though frequently dismissed as “loony”, “egotist”, “not very nice”, etc., Mr G is, in many respects, a class act. He can manipulate the media extraordinarily well, he is a seriously good TV performer who always gives as good as he gets, he knows he will be attacked and he is superb at dealing with it.
  • Mr G is an opportunist in the sense that he spots opportunities. Many politicians try to. Mr G is good at it.
  • Mr G is a former election organiser and he knows his stuff.
  • Mr G is a minor celebrity in a country mildly obsesses with celebrity.
  • Mr G is not without charm ‘on the doorstep’.
  • Mr G is also famously litigious, dismissive of journalists who notoriously ‘don’t like it up ‘em’ and seen is by some as rude and aggressive – others would see it as honest and passionate...
his real opposition was Labour and the contrast (on the regional Sunday politics programme) couldn’t have been worse for Mister Ed’s party. Mr Hussain may be a decent man, I don’t know, but on this programme he was incoherent and inarticulate, nervous and shifty. Ah yes, the shifty, sly Asian.  We can't have THAT now can we...So Mr G was perfectly placed. A ‘friend of Muslims’ playing to the ‘Brothers’ but not involved in ‘community’ in-fighting, a White guy who other White guys can vote for instead of voting for a Muslim Ah, here we go again, you don't see White upper-cased usually, why, John?..., 
  • when under attack from a viable fringe candidate there has to be an effective counter attack. Ignore them and they prosper. Labour needs to firmly dispense with the lunatic idea that the best way to fight election campaigns is merely by “knocking on a lot of doors” definitely never do that.  Eh John?  I remember you watching the football while others went out and knocked doors for you in Park ward.  Including me. as a substitute for having something coherent to say. Where is that policy written down?  This is just treating your readers as stupid.

Elsewhere in the piece Mr Howarth uses American English, without giving reasons.  Apparently there has been panic buying of something called "gasoline".  I know Mr Howarth has an ongoing difficult relationship with the English language, but this is pitiful stuff.  Still, at least the mask has slipped so we can see what is underneath.  Nothing about Galloway's policy views (which found a lot of favour in some sections of the Bradford West electorate)  why not? No, GG is a "White guy".  So that's all right then.  "One of us".  "born and bred" in the UK, hey John?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a pile of piss.

Anonymous said...

Here is as good as any place to recommend the brilliant book by David James Smith - The Young Mandela. It is not at all sentimental - there is no easy walk to sainthood, as he says. Just read it. It is great and he is a serious and decent writer who could teach the Reading boys a few truths about 'race'.

Rob Marchant said...

Nice piece, Jane. I wrote about why lefties never think we can be racist here: http://thecentreleft.blogspot.com.es/2012/01/abbott-flynn-and-why-we-lefties-think.html

Also, less overtly and more accepted, some anti-Semitism creeping in: http://thecentreleft.blogspot.com.es/2012/03/faced-with-anti-semitism-left.html