Why is 'George Galloway's' 'RESPECT' group in Tower Hamlets lagging behind?

What planet are you from? You appear as borg.

i hate galloway the fucking twatnick nob head, that nasty peice of work is such a bandwagon jumping looser, someone really needs to push him off those massive stages at the socialist wanker marches sooner or later,

Hark at how funny they are: A (in the UK) and the Author of the original article are head to head to be chump of the year. How they make one feel so clever.


They could be Peter and Christopher Hitchins divulged of all their intelligence after undergoing twin full lobotomies. Or is it just a lone crusader, or the BNP's chief political strategist.

I was at the Tower Hamlets Council Budget meeting last week right until the end. There is an emergency budget meeting coming up next week to finalise the 2007-08 budget. The Resepct councillors made few and meaningless interjections one even coming along with a prepared script. They appeared self satisfied with their lot, Oli Rahman usual feisty self threatening to see a Labour councillor afterwards after being taunted. The funniest bit of the meeting was when a labour councillor boasted about how many of their members were connected to the unions, all of them were, only 3 Respect councillors are connected to the unions. The Respect councillors just sat there, while the SWP members in the gallery could do nothing.

It was true what the post said, unfortunately the Respect councillors if they do not get a move on they will dig their own electoral grave unles they jump ship to the other political parties. Ideally they should have hit the ground running but this was not the case after they got elected. They were even having to be steered through the council meetings early in their political life by the Conservatives.

Galloway shouldn’t have bothered chastising Blair about the illegal wars, Trident, the privatisation of essential Public Services.

Working class people don’t need RESPECT, they should be consumed with racist hate and fighting amongst themselves whilst callous right-wing politicians take away our civil liberties and destroy this country making it more and more dangerous for all of us.

Bring back public flogging and hanging. Bring back soup kitchens. Destroy the NHS and the Welfare State. Join a union so they give your subs to Blair so he can use your money to undermine your hard fought for rights. Fuck it, who needs a proper living wage or a state pension anyway.

Si, you say Respect Councillors made "meaningless interjections".
From your comment it appears you are an expert in "meaningless interjections".

Are you saying Respect /Galloway bad - Socialism, Anarchism, Unions, Labour or even Conservatives good?

Why would you want to go to a council budget debate, if you didn't have to? It's a very odd thing to do.

I am intere

When Galloway spoke in the House of Commons on vote fraud in Tower Hamlets, did he do so by accident? Hardly.

He carried in that speech evidence of more research than most of his speeches [rare though they are].

Why would that be?

Perhaps the Galloway -SWP failure to get anywhere with their repeated court challenges over vote fraud in Tower Hamlets may have something to do with it.

George Galloway is not propelled first by principle. If he were, he would have addressed the issue of corruption within his own entourage.

Or is it being too harsh?

OK. Let’s rephrase this: Galloway should have looked at the possibility of corruption occurring within his SWP mates in Tower Hamlets.

Here, below, is only one reason why. There are other reasons.

His 'assistant' Rob Hoveman is close to Judy Cox. Both occur as speaking for or getting quoted on behalf of 'RESPECT' and Galloway, both pushing the same line.

Glyn Robbin/Robbins, the Tower Hamlets RESPECT chair is close to Eileen Short.

Eileen Short is the most frequently cited spokesperson for the Tower Hamlets Defend the Council Housing campaign.

Eileen Short is also the paid adviser to Tower Hamlets RESPECT group of non-SWP councilors.

Eileen Short is the sister of Clare Short who is included in the promotion line that she should be imposed on the poor voters of Bethnal Green and Bow at any general election that may be called.

Eileen Short had been the figure that Galloway and the SWP created as a personality in the 18 months leading up to the Galloway appearance as a candidate for the Bethnal Green and Bow constituency.

Until then, Eileen Short had not been publicized as anything more than the fact that she was an opponent of the attack on Iraq and that she was Clare Short's sister.

Neither the fact that she was [had been, depe4dning on the point in time that a given propaganda item appeared] employed as publicist for Tower Hamlets Council nor that she was close to the SWP was allowed to get into the public domain.

What she used to claim for the Tower Hamlets Council is not very hard to examine.

Most of what Eileen Shirt publicized as being achievements of the Tower Hamlets Council would not be seen as such by any genuine voters who thought that Galloway was there to provide an alternative.

The George Galloway MP's records in the House of Commons are very worryingly thin. They are tellingly reminiscent of the contemptuous attitude displayed by so many other MPs to their constituents.

The remarkable high profile that he is involved in lending to, for instance, Carol Swords, the amusingly titled ‘lone campaigner’, is shown up as a sham when the facts are looked at. Ms Swords is a very well known member of the Galloway party as she is also a very active presence in the ‘RESPECT’ office in Shoreditch.

Whoever may be cultivating Ms Sword’s image as the lone campaigner on housing is not doing any favours to the very serious cause and case for retaining public sector control over publicly funded housing. Ms Swords was also a very well publicized candidate the 4 May 2006 council elections.

It is not very nice to conceal so many obvious facts and dress Ms Swords up as lone campaigner when so many people are truly opposed to what the Council has been doing ion Council housing. And even to other RESOECT supporters who have given and continued to give so much of their time, the description is more than baffling. More than mysterious.

All of these links raise serious questions about conflict of interests and to be kind to Eileen and Galloway and the SWP, opportunism.

With so many of the key personnel around Galloway being so closely involved and linked with one another, it is not reasonable to expect that the SWP grouping, styled for an evidently short, opportunistic period as 'RESPECT" would operate as any better than their effective model that is in control of the present Tower Hamlets Council.

None of the 12 councilors is playing any role in making any policy. As can be seen. The SWP and the 'respectcoalition' web sites tried to use a female one, Rania Khan for a while. But they have found out that the claims they were advertising with her name and involvement were not catching the imagination of the politically principled and pro-democratic members of the population.

There is more evidence of similar goings on.

..yes very serious questions, the most important is

©Muhammad Haque/AADHIKARonline 2007

Exactly two months ago, on 5 March 2007, AADHIKARonline published on the UK Indymedia observations about the Tower Hamlets Opposition group 'RESPECT'.

In the past week, things have happened including the 'defection' by one RESPECT councillor to the controlling faction on Tower Hamlets Council, confirming the existence of very serious problems within the group ordinarily identified with the Bethnal green and Bow MP George Galloway.

What is likely to happen in the near future is even grimmer than some of the comments to our original post suggested.

With the corrupting influence of 'Undone mayor' Ken Livingstone being spread across what many still consider to be the 'Socialist Workers Party' in semi camouflage , the RESPECT group is not about to become the consistent, ethically and democratically robust [as opposed to being undemocratically and unethically and corruptly defiant] and accountable opposition in the Borough that the community deserves.

AADHIKAROnline has scheduled the publication of another series of exclusive investigative reports, starting this weekend on a new web site, focussing on the crisis that the people in Tower Hamlets face due to the absence of opposition on the local council and on other 'constitutional' forums about Tower Hamlets.

The publication is part of the forthcoming appearance of a community-based news operation that is intended to fill the gap left by the absence of a local press that is truthful let alone prescient about key political currents and tends in the context of the massive heeds for such media in the East End of London today.