If a queue of Iraqi socialists and democrats is forming to volunteer for the assassination of George Galloway, there may be a few teachers’ union activists and anti-war campaigners to boost its numbers. It is widely known that Galloway failed to turn up when the Government secured its one-vote majority for “anti-terror” legislation in November 2005. Less well known, so far, are the votes he missed in May 2006, on the Education and Armed Forces Bills.
67 Labour MPs rebelled in an attempt to amend the Government’s plans to flog off our school system, but Galloway was not with them in the lobby. Perhaps he feared that a defeat for the Government would endanger Blair’s plans for the expansion of Respect’s beloved faith schools? In fact, Galloway was not in Westminster at all, as witnessed by his failure to participate in the parliamentary resistance to the Armed Forces Bill — section 8 of which will allow the state to imprison for life soldiers who refuse to participate in “military occupation of a foreign country or territory”.
Galloway’s absence was due to a flying visit to Cuba, where he appeared on state television with none other than Fidel Castro. In other words, he was too busy helping the Cuban ruling class to screw their workers to do anything about the British ruling class screwing theirs.
