Manchild in George's Promised Land

As Britain goes to the polls, an article by a journalist and pundit called Ben Judah begins:

'Welcome to Gallowayland.

This is what I think as I drive into Bradford.

In two hour’s time I will be punched in the head.

The squinty moon-face of one of Britain’s most ferocious orators glares from the street posters, capped by a black fedora.

... George Galloway has turned the constituency of Bradford West into his own world, catapulting into parliament as a Muslim-grievance politician from Britain’s most Islamic city.

Galloway, a former Labour Party MP, has got his seat by using anti-Zionist rhetoric, whilst suing critics who say he is anti-Semitic. His political genius is to have twigged that Bradford’s multiculturalism is a mirage: He now plays the city’s Pakistani clan politics, of family controlled votes, for power.

British civility has collapsed in Bradford’s elections.

The Labour Party is reported to have struggled to choose a candidate without the acquiescence of the Kashmiri clan dominating its local branch, and supporters of its eventual candidate Naz Shah have received menacing threats — like the dead crow, its mouth stuffed with grass, she found on her doorstep.

Bradford has also earned a reputation in Britain as unfriendly to Jews — a place where a journalist who walked the streets in a skullcap in March was almost immediately abused.

Galloway, who heads something called the Respect Party, has declared the city “an Israel-free zone.”

I drive through Gallowayland.

The leader of the Respect Party calls Bradford “the city of gold,” and has been going around the city in an old Rolls Royce, or an open-top double-decker bus fluttering with Pakistani and Palestinian flags.

I drive around shuttered industrial yards, cramped terraces of rising damp, and boarded-up pubs, their roofs sprouting with plants.

Respect has told me they are holding a “rally” in the community hall of St. Martin’s Church that I may attend as a journalist.

I walk into the hall....'

Read the rest here
Update: Galloway has lost his seat!!!