Lazarus Galloway

A Google search for "George Galloway demagogue" yields nearly fifty thousand hits (probably, after today, more) which is hardly surprising. Demagogue is generally the term of abuse hurled at politicians in lieu of more openly mocking the people who vote for them.

Sordel is, as regular reader of these pages will know, thoroughly disaffected with the democratic system of government, but it has its moments, and last night's ringing endorsement of Galloway by the electors of Bradford West was one of them. Rather than celebrate this vindication of a system that most people regard as an unequivocal good thing, however, many commentators will conclude that Galloway was elected because most of the people voting were too stupid or gullible to recognise a scoundrel when he stood before them demanding their voices. Unable to say this openly, for fear that their implicitly racist position will be seen for what it is, they use the word demagogue.

Labour Blogger Mark Ferguson nicely epitomises this view: "Voter ID and anti-Tory campaigning was, on this occasion, insufficient up against the onslaught of demagoguery."

The Times today - covering the event as though it were a massive electoral upset and smack in the face for Ed Miliband - gave a brief summary of Galloway's career taking in, as highlights, his deselection as a Labour MP in 1988 for admitting to sexual carryings-on while in Greece (surely the most bizarre career-threatening scandal ever); his support for Saddam Hussein; his expulsion from the Labour Party for opposing the war in Iraq; his defeat in the Poplar & Limehouse constituency in 2010; and, his subsequent failure to win a seat in the Scottish Parliament. "His credibility as a serious political figure appeared to have been finished by his appearance on Celebrity Big Brother in 2006, where he was shown pretending to lap milk like a cat from the hands of the actress Rula Lenska."

The Times's account at no point suggests that the voters would have had a good reason to vote for Galloway; nor does it provide any analysis of the background to a victory in which Galloway got more than twice the votes cast for his Labour opponent and 60% of the overall vote.

So, let's do it for them. (I have laboured for several minutes on Wikipedia to bring you this special report.)

The Bradford West election was precipitated by the fact that the previous MP, Marsha Singh, stepped down through ill health. The Labour candidate was Imran Hussein, a former Labour councillor, who announced that he would not attend hustings with other candidates. (Not that Sordel would like to do battle with Galloway, but it's hardly the act of a political lion to run away.) Galloway's campaign was run by the defecting Labour campaign manager who had previously overseen Marsha Singh's victory.

All was clearly not well in the Labour camp.

Having inherited the Labour political machine, Galloway was in a strong position to mobilise popular sentiment. When his campaign manager was helping Labour, this was doubtless called "mustering grass-roots support", but now that he was helping RESPECT it became the "onslaught of demagoguery".

RESPECT has had a troubled few years due to a split between the Galloway faction and the Socialist Workers Party faction within what is a fairly small political organisation. Nevertheless, the core of its policies are focused on social values that might reasonably resonate with any voter: the rights of refugees and immigrants; redistributive taxation; an increase in the minimum wage; and implacable opposition to military adventuring.

On the face of it, then, Bradford voters would be making a rational and broadly self-interested decision to elect George Galloway as their MP. Regarding them as having been hoodwinked is an understandable slur on Galloway himself by his political opponents, but a revealing glimpse of their true estimation of the value of "democracy".

"Must These Have Voices?"

In retrospect, it wasn't really necessary to wage a massive campaign in Afghanistan to make the country (slightly less un-) safe for voters. It turns out that an honour guard around Hamid Karzai's photocopier would have done just as well.

Personally, Sordel has always felt that we should get democracy working here before imposing it on others. Lest we forget, the man currently cowering under the prime minister's desk was not elected (even by his own party) yet this has not stopped him grabbing the tiller and setting a course for the nearest iceberg. His predecessor was indeed elected, but he spent much of his premiership explaining why (much as he deeply respected the opinions of the overwhelming majority of the electorate) we'd be doing things his way for now. Having promised a referendum before further European integration, Labour decided to ratify the Lisbon Treaty without one, and the low cunning of this decision is confirmed by the failure of Ireland to pass a referendum on the same issue. Et cetera.

This is merely to say that democracy does not operate in the United Kingdom, but let us suppose that it did. Under a constituency system in which the winner takes all, the overwhelming majority of voters will live in a constituency where only two political parties can possibly win. Many people will live in a constituency where one political party has an insurmountable majority.

The smallest parliamentary majority is apparently Crawley, where the current incumbent is handing on by the varnish on her nails to a majority of 37. She's a Labour MP, so I fancy that her chances of holding the seat at the next election are slender. Let us imagine, however, that you live in Crawley at the time of the next election, the seat is won or lost by a single vote, and you find yourself on the winning end. Would this be a validation for you of the democratic system, to have made such a seemingly enormous difference? Or would you consider that the body of votes sloshing backwards and forwards had pretty much made your individual vote worthless? Democracy values all citizens equally, but does not value them highly.

Why, then, are we so persuaded of the value of the democratic system that we are willing to sacrifice lives in order to transform Afghanistan into one? Set aside for a moment patriotic concern for British troops; I am not convinced that is worth the death of a single individual of any nationality to establish a democracy in that country, even were it possible to do so.

Of course, I see that there are significant motives for governments to like democracies, whether domestic or foreign.

But why on Earth should we?