TRASHFUTURE - *PREVIEW* Britainology 81: George Galloway feat. Hussein Kesvani

Episode Date: March 21, 2024

The eternal gadfly of British politics and reality TV returns to the centre stage yet again, and as such Milo and Hussein cobble together all their anecdotes and facts to explain George Galloway's whole deal to Nate. No guarantees that they succeed, but they try. Get the whole episode on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/britainology-81-100695094 *STREAM ALERT* Check out our Twitch stream, which airs 9-11 pm UK time every Monday and Thursday, at the following link: https://www.twitch.tv/trashfuturepodcast *MILO ALERT* Check out Milo’s upcoming live shows here: https://www.miloedwards.co.uk/live-shows *WEB DESIGN ALERT* Tom Allen is a friend of the show (and the designer behind our website). If you need web design help, reach out to him here:  https://www.tomallen.media/ Trashfuture are: Riley (@raaleh), Milo (@Milo_Edwards), Hussein (@HKesvani), Nate (@inthesedeserts), and November (@postoctobrist)

I mean, all I can say is I know very little about him, but I know about Stop the War coalition. I know that he was at one point an MP for, I believe, what was it, Bethnal Green? Yeah, was he Bethnal Green? He was also Bradford West, right? So he's been an MP. So I've actually got the Parliament UK website up here. So he was a Labour MP from June 1987 to October 2003 in multiple constituencies. He was first elected in Glasgow Hillhead and he was the MP there from 1987 to 1997.

Then he was the MP for Glasgow Kelvin from 1997 to 2005. That may have actually just been like a constituency redraw or something. I'm not sure if it was like a meaningful change. And then he was the MP for Bethnal Green from the 5th of May, 2005 to the 6th of May, 2010. I think that was the respect. No, that all, maybe that was independent labor. Yeah. No.

Yeah. That was, that was as the respect party MP. Yeah. Correct. And then he was again, the MP for Bradford West from 2012 to 2015. Yes. Yes. Yeah. I know very little about him, but like I said, obviously I've seen the video of the, do you

want me to be the cat? And I've seen the photos of him in the hat and I've seen the photos of, you know, the Iraq war protests and stuff. I know that they tried to do a lot of guilt by association with him and Jeremy Corbyn because of Stop the War in 2003. But he seems mercurial to me. And I obviously listened to the episode you guys recorded recently about him.

And I produced that one, put it out. And so hearing some of the stories and whatnot, I'm taken by the idea, like it might've been November who said this about the two different letters that there was the letter to Muslim constituents or Muslim voters about like, and the occupation, free Gaza. And then the letter to Muslim constituents or Muslim voters about like, you know, and the occupation, free Gaza.

And then the letter to white voters, which was, I know what a woman is, make Bradford, make fucking Rochdale great again. You know, we'll make, do Lancashire Maga party. He's kind of like the white guy in Four Lions. That's what he always reminds me of. Yes, yeah. Like, it's just like standing up at like a reasonably quiet like constituency Labour Party meeting and going, Mush-a-law, brother!

Like, there's that sort of like element to him. So I gotta ask, you know a lot about this and also like everyone in this story seems to be talking about you and your community or over you or around you or whatever. So I'm interested in your take because for for on George Galloway to begin with, but then also if you feel like it, the sort of what he kind of represents, like as a type of person in Britain, if you think that's relevant, but start with, start with him as, as, as like what you've as the honorable, as a sort of honorable Muslim who may or may not have converted.

And also sub question, did he convert to Shiism or Sunniism? Because there is like the stuff that isn't publicized is the fact that like when he was sort of kind of converting or not, the stories were going where he was going to every mosque and basically converting. So he did multiple conversions, but in different mosques. They were like, no one is quite sure whether he's Sunni or Shia or like 12 or a Niner. It's quite, it's quite bizarre. Sufi Galloway. And he won't answer the question.

Like I was looking at some interviews in the run up to this episode. It's like, did he ever address his question as to whether he converted? And like he never, he never did. The closest he got to sort of like saying anything religiously based was in the spectator when he spoke to, I can't remember her name, but she's like a fairly well known writer in the UK where he basically says that, yes, I believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which is to which the writer then says, well, like, okay, so he can't be Muslim then. But he never answers any of this. And

so I, I did remember it was like, this is very funny because he came to my mosque in South London. I can't remember what year it was. I wasn't there, but my dad went. And apparently he converted to Shiism on that night because he was so inspired by everyone who came. George Galloway shocked South London mosque by flawlessly converting to Shiism. Is this a really bizarre question? I've always wondered what the answer to that was. So to answer your broader question, I wasn't really familiar with Galloway until I guess the same time as other people. This was the Iraq war, as one of the more outspoken public figures during that period.

He was also one of the people that were basically doing mosque tours and stuff. And so he got a lot of support from like Muslim communities on the basis of being like one of the few kind of like anti-war voices. Sure. I didn't really know much about him up until that point. And even after, I mean, he'd like, you know, I saw you, you'd see him on question time quite a lot. He'd go on to like be like, he was also maybe, I don't know whether you guys have spoken about this, but like Milo probably has more of a understanding of what this type of guy

is. But that type of public figure is just on like every weekend talk show. So there was like a talk show on a Sunday. It was like, it was kind of like religion and ethics, but it was, I can't remember the name of it. It went on for a really long time, but like... Saturday Kitchen with James Martin. Well, yeah, yeah.

Saturday Kitchen with James Martin. I would love to see Galloway on the Saturday Kitchen. And making an omelette with chives and turkey bacon. On Sundays, there was this like talk show that Nicky Campbell used to host. And it was like this very like inflate. They would sort of have these issues, you know, it would, it would sort of be stuff like, Oh, you know, should the hijab be banned in public buildings, for example. And they would, and it would be like these very fiery debates that would often sort of descend into like, like shouting matches and

stuff and it'd be very stressful to watch. But it was like one of the most popular Sunday programs and he would be on there. He was on there quite a lot, which is to say that he's a kind of guy who I think as we we all know, is very much like a performer at heart. Um, and he will sort of perform and he will perform in any way that you think. And it's like, I think the only person comparable to him or like one of the, the sort of public figures comparable to him, which is not a surprise to anyone would be like Nigel Farage, right? In the sense of like, this is someone who is obviously like very politically driven, very driven by a career, but also is very good at sort of performing in the ways that the British public expect them.

So if they need to go on reality TV, they're not going to sort of be like overtly political on reality TV, or they'll do so in a way that's like palatable, but they'll use that as a way to sort of reinforce their sort of position as a kind of broader public figure that can insert themselves into politics or insert themselves into popular culture. And I think Galloway like kind of fits that category. And I also say this because when I had a job working in TV, when I first started out, in my first years doing journalism, this was around about 2014 and George Galloway had a show. This is a bonus show. This is a bonus thing, right? Okay. So like I will snitch on myself.

I used to work for a wire agent, a Russian wire, the news wire agency. It shared the same building as RT. He had a show in RT. It was called Sputnik. And so we'd have to sort of use the shared kitchen. And so- Sharing in the espresso of use the shared kitchen. Um, and so sharing in the espresso machine. Well, this was a time where he wanted like very strong teas. And so he would like get annoyed with people like friends of mine, like who used to work on the TV side of that thing because they would never make his teas strong enough. Um, so I do remember he's the opposite of Julia Hartley, who only drinks the weakest tea imaginable. Which is weird because her name, her last name is Brewer. Like anyway, that's.

Well, they apparently say on, on like, I think it's talk TV where she was working. So I know someone who's a producer and apparently they call her Julia Hardly Brewer because she drinks this like incredibly milky tea with like, it looks like a cup of warm milk. Like it has no discernible tea coloring. It's all that's, that's, that's, that's very funny. I'm not going to be able to stop thinking about that. So he like, yeah, he used to like get chastised the assistance for not making strong enough teas for him. Um, he is a lot shorter than you'd expect him to be, which I think is sort of, um, that I think tells a lot about his character. He

like hunches quite a bit. Um, and he's like, I, he's kind of like um, that I think tells a lot about his character. He like hunches quite a bit. Um, and he's like, I, he's kind of like not really that talkative until he's like, there's a camera in front of him, which is maybe like another aspect of this too, but like, he's saving his energy. He's like, at heart he's such a performer that like, when you're in a situation where you don't know who your audience is, you just don't really know what to do. I don't think that's like an uncommon thing, but that was definitely something that I had sort of noticed in like my observations of him, like in the waiting areas for stuff like that. I don't think his show was particularly popular. It was called Sputnik. I think this is, this should still like be like elements

of it. It was the channel, I think, cause I know Sputnik TV. I know what you're talking about. Cause I just remember seeing stuff shared on it. I know exactly what you're talking about. And yeah, it is weird that he was kind of part of that milieu, but you know, I guess I always had a show on press TV as well. I believe the Iranian one. Yeah. I mean, what I was a bit of a circuit isn't there of like, are you, are you a

politician who's unpopular in the United Kingdom? Would you like to be on the following like rogue media channels? I also think that like, to me, the two people that were used the most often as kind of guilt by association against Jeremy Corbyn when he was the leader of the Labour Party and in contention to be prime minister was the two people were Ken Livingstone and George Galloway. I feel like those two individuals, and particularly I think because of Stop the War, but also because they represented in some permutation a kind of like... I mean, Ken Livingstone is certainly the Labour Left.

I don't know about Galloway as a Labour politician in the 80s and the sort of like, as you think about him getting... His first time winning a seat in Scotland in 1987, I have no idea about his politics then, but he doesn't strike me as a particularly left-wing person. It's just that as people have pointed out on this show, if for example there's a catastrophe taking place and it's politically impossible for anyone in Britain to say anything besides actually this genocide is good, George Galloway will be the person to say, no, it's actually bad.

There is one man and if you truly need him and you can find him Maybe he can help nothing else about his politics will change or shift for that It's just that he he knows a hot-button issue when he sees it