[NYTr] Galloway Will Run Again

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by rick kissell

BBC NEWS - Aug 10, 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6940517.stm

Galloway to contest next election

Respect MP George Galloway has announced he will stand again at the 
next general election.

He will challenge Transport Minister Jim Fitzpatrick for the Poplar and 
Limehouse seat in London's East End.

Mr Galloway, currently MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, said he had 
resolved to quit the Commons until his recent suspension prompted him
to re-consider.

He had been tipped to stand against Justice Secretary Jack Straw in 
Blackburn, Lancashire.

'Battle of the Scots'

But Mr Galloway, whose current constituency borders Poplar and 
Limehouse, said he wanted to remain in the East End.

Mr Fitzpatrick, a fellow Scot, has a majority of more than 7,000.

Mr Galloway, speaking on his Talksport radio show, said: "It's going to 
be a battle of the Scots in the East End of London.

"Me standing in the tradition of Keir Hardie, him standing in the 
tradition of Ramsay MacDonald, the betrayer of everything Labour stands 
for.

"It's going to be a very interesting contest."

A critic of the war in Iraq, Mr Galloway was expelled from Labour in 
2003 for bringing the party into disrepute.

Standing for the anti-war Respect Party in 2005, he won Bethnal Green 
and Bow from Labour's Oona King.

Last month, he was suspended from the Commons for 18 days following an 
inquiry into his financial links to Saddam Hussein's Iraq regime.

Mr Galloway said: "Having been suspended from the House of Commons by
Mr Speaker [Michael] Martin entirely unjustly and in an entirely unfair
and unnecessary way, I have decided I definitely am going to stand
again."

He was previously MP for Glasgow Hillhead and Glasgow Kelvin, having 
first been elected to Parliament in 1987.

© BBC MMVII