Galloway has his own flaws, no doubt, but I thought he demonstrated the best of the left-Socialist tradition in his agitation against the war. A friend of mine stood as a revolutionary communist candidate against Galloway when he was the Labour Party candidate in Fife or some such place. He was a pretty effective operator, and left no room on the left for her to get any votes.
Later – a bit too late in my view – Galloway broke from the Labour Party to set up a left-wing alternative. I suppose the underlying weakness was that he was pitching ‘Old Labour’ (Keynesian counter-crisis spending, welfare state reformism) against New Labour, which gave the whole thing a kind of Old Time Religion, nostalgia for the days of Keir Hardy feel. Still, where he was very effective was in building up a coalition that was anti-war, and gave a political voice to Britain’s excluded Muslim minority. His high point was defeating the Labour Party candidate Oonagh King (sp?) in the Bethnal Green and Bow by-election.
Later the coalition split when Galloway clashed with its largest component – the SWP (of which both Hitchens and King were graduates, by curious coincidence).
Galloway’s own political views are a mix of left-wing Labour, with a hint of Stalinism (hence the insult ‘drink-soaked Trotskyist popinjay’). But mostly he comes from that slightly deranged parliamentary socialist orator tradition. Like Henry ‘Orator’ Hunt or Hamer Shawcross in Fame is the Spur.