Press Office

Aired: Sunday, 11 January, 2009 10:00
Sunday Live

Any quotes used should be attributed to Sky News, Sunday Live

ADAM BOULTON:
Joining me now is a man who I’m sure has strong opinions on two at least of those stories. He is the MP for the Respect Party, George Galloway, also prolific broadcaster on press, TV and on Talk Radio. You were on Talk Radio last night as the news of this …

GEORGE GALLOWAY:
As this Harry story broke, yes, it certainly saved the last hour and a half of the show from going dull, it was a huge response to it.

ADAM BOULTON:
Have you got a view on it?

GEORGE GALLOWAY:
Yes. I mean James Whitaker, the venerable royal correspondent, put it to me last night when I interviewed him, I got him out of bed actually, that this is the way officers speak and moreover this is the way the royal family speaks. Well it is pretty depressing on both counts isn’t it? Those that think it is just some sort of nickname like Taffy or Jock have obviously never been on the receiving end of it. There is no Taffy or Jock heard the word Taffy or Jock as the last thing they heard before they were stabbed to death.

ADAM BOULTON:
Jerry Lewis, the Israeli radio commentator, was saying he saw Paki as a bit like saying Yid or something like that.

GEORGE GALLOWAY:
Yes, it’s as insulting as that and it is said with the most venom, and to be fair the prince didn’t really say it with venom, by those who really hate the people that they are addressing. Nobody really calls somebody Taffy because they hate them.

ADAM BOULTON:
What about your Talk Radio audience, I mean that’s a fairly rugged audience?

GEORGE GALLOWAY:
Good point, yes, it is rugged and opinion was divided by those who thought it was just like being called an Ozzie and those, mainly Indian and Pakistani callers who said two things. First that you have never been on the receiving end of this obviously and secondly, soldiers from the Indian subcontinent, two million of them, fought in our Army in the Second World War, they didn’t wait until two years into the war before joining in and they didn’t present us with a bill at the end of it. They won more VCs than any other contingent of the British armed forces in the Second World War and someone, an officer like Harry, if he was a gentleman, should remember that.

ADAM BOULTON:
People caricature public opinion to a certain extent but over the time that you have been an MP and in politics, do you think there has been a real change?

GEORGE GALLOWAY:
There has. People used to described disabled people for example, who equally were made the way they are as all of us are made the way we are in terms of colour, people used to talk in terms that would be simply unthinkable now so there has been, and some people cry out against this as being the march of political correctness, but do you know when you boil it down political correctness is just about not needlessly hurting people’s feelings.

 

ADAM BOULTON:
Yet in the sort of constituencies where you’ve been standing and you are going to stand in East London, the question of race and ethnic background does cut directly into politics.

GEORGE GALLOWAY:
It does and in Glasgow I had almost no ethnic minorities for 18 years and now the majority of my constituents are minorities so it has been a bit of a step change for me but you must learn to walk a mile in the other fellow’s shoes, you have got to try and see things how it would look from their point of view and if you do that, you will see that this kind of language is completely unacceptable.

ADAM BOULTON:
Let me try and apply that to the war now going on in Gaza. If at the end of this Israel is not subjected to daily rocket attacks, won’t it have achieved something and achieved something constructive?

GEORGE GALLOWAY:
Well first that’s not likely to happen, as it didn’t happen in the Lebanon war two summers ago. This kind of iron first has been tried by Israel many, many times and it always fails because you have got a whole people that are against them. Secondly, it starts at the wrong point. The people in Gaza are firing rockets because they are under illegal military occupation and …

ADAM BOULTON:
Israel tried to withdraw from Gaza.

GEORGE GALLOWAY:
Well you say so but they then locked the doors and besieged the people without electricity, without food, without medicine and they regularly assassinated the people inside. They haven’t withdrawn from the West Bank but they are still …

ADAM BOULTON:
Even if you take your analogy with the Lebanon for example, I am personally surprised that the Siniora government is still there in Lebanon, Hezbollah has largely stayed out of this present conflict so you could say in that sense Israel has made itself more secure.

GEORGE GALLOWAY:
But there is an election in June in Lebanon when the Siniora government will almost certainly be defeated and Hezbollah certainly is staying out of this for internal Lebanese reasons but if they did get involved they are a very formidable …

ADAM BOULTON:
But yes, they have stayed out so you could argue from an Israeli perspective that actually perhaps that did achieve something.

GEORGE GALLOWAY:
Well I would watch this space if I were you but my point about the West Bank is that there is no Hamas and no rockets in the West Bank but there is still occupation and still murder.

ADAM BOULTON:
So where do you think this is going?

GEORGE GALLOWAY:
Well it is disaster for Israel I believe. Of course it is a bigger disaster in the short term for the families who have lost their mothers and children …

ADAM BOULTON:
But it will have to go on what Barack Obama does.

GEORGE GALLOWAY:
It will. Barack Obama will bring it to an end and when you look back across the ashes nothing will have been achieved, nothing will have changed except a new generation of radicalised Muslims will have been born. We are always worrying about that, banning organisations and refusing visas to clerics but in truth millions of new radicalised, Bin Ladenised you might say, have been created.

ADAM BOULTON:
We shall see. George Galloway thank you very much for joining us.