I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…

Faith schools – I too was slightly surprised to see that describing faith schools as “divisive” is controversial at Labour conference these days.

Huh? What did I ever do to you?

the word Galloway has become such a loaded term, that brings to mind so many pre-conceptions, many of which are to put it politely, Bullshit. It appears that people take great pride in HATING him, is it like a hobby for wannabe bored political commentators?

Firstly, where is the conclusive evidence that he ran on an anti-semitic platform? and secondly, what you describe as an obsession with Israel is beyond-urgent as a political matter in itself, and has been for the past 4 decades.
A lot of people I know had no idea about what was going on in Palestine/Israel until they heard about it from Galloway interviews….what is wrong with that? It’s an enormously important issue to highlight for obvious reasons….you see him as obsessive and schizophrenic, but isn’t a lot of what he says true? Isn’t it consistent? Have you researched what he says? Doesn’t he have a right to bring this issue to the forefront? Isn’t it a matter of urgency for the people currently locked in that open-air prison called Palestine?

Chis makes a good point, I think there are a lot of so-called progressives that can recount stats and facts like hymn sheets, but will snobbishly laugh and lock-out/exclude anybody they sense has a whiff of SWP/Respect/Marxism about them…what’s the result going to be from this?

Lest I be mistaken, let me say that I think that this is mostly a good thing so long as it is done sensibly and doesn’t descend into factionalism. The answer for ‘progessives’ is articulate those concerns seperately – and mostly ignore Respect on everything else.

You seek to undo all his good work in the world by (overtly) pointing to the 10-sec clip of him in that famous meeting with the Iraqi tyrant

To be facetious, this is arguably as relevant/irrelevant as the photo showing Saddam meeting up with a certain Donald Rumsfeld.

In any case, Galloway is not the main problem – it’s most of his fellow travellers – he merely gives them a platform.

Many good points there about George “call me Muhammed” Galloway.

But after he won an election on an anti-Semitic platform, I think it’s right that he is demonised as an idiot.

Also, his obsession with Israel/’the Zionists’/Mossad etc is (1) boring (2) schizophrenic and (3) rivals Anas for sheer stupidity.

Don’t you see what you just did? You connected Galloway to the word dictator with a shrug of your soldiers, you seek to undo all his good work in the world by (overtly) pointing to the 10-sec clip of him in that famous meeting with the Iraqi tyrant. Is the assumption here, that he is as bad as a dictator for having addressed a dictator in generous terms? Are they really the same thing? Are you going to discount all good because of the video clip that has bled into your brain?

It appears to be nice and clear-cut in your mind. YOU saw the clip, YOU were disgusted and YOU boycotted everything he ever did that followed…it’s the eqivalent of forever hating someone because you dont like their face.

If you want to believe that being publicity obsessed is the same thing as being some kind of child-killing monster rapist, then fine…but It’s not, and if people that claim to be ‘progressive’ are going to exclude Respect as a weirdo-fringe party of nutters for their ‘crime’ of having Galloway as a founder member then I think it’s quite sad.

Chis makes a good point, I think there are a lot of so-called progressives that can recount stats and facts like hymn sheets, but will snobbishly laugh and lock-out/exclude anybody they sense has a whiff of SWP/Respect/Marxism about them…what’s the result going to be from this? The ‘Progressive’ left are going to fight between themselves, and become more and more disconnected from each other.

Galloway may say a hundred things many of us agree with, but when we find out it’s coming from that MONSTER Galloway, we discount everything we heard and kick him into the ground…I don’t recognise this left.

I’m not even a big fan, but I fail to understand why supposedely progressive people are keen to stick a sharp knife into the entire project based on a narrow understanding of what it is about

Because a bunch of unsavoury elements running around claiming all the while to have some kind of *purely* progressive agenda tends to tarnish the entire progressive ‘movement’.

what i find surprising is that being publicity obsessed is an accusation people throw at specific politicians. the whole politics game is publicity and media obsessed. media commentators nowadays have a better chance at getting into elected office. ( and dont they know it)

Also, Rupa is a lady.

I disagree with some of what she has to say but I still think that she is an intelligent commentator. As for faith schools, I am undecided, and I think that there are good arguments on both sides, so neither side should be dismissed lightly.

“You are entirely correct and it a point I tried to make in my post where I jokingly try and point out that anyone that thinks that a secular Muslim cannot exist must be one of those Islamaphobes I hear so much about.”

So that is what you meant- now I understand.

What article are you reading TFI? What do the lines at the end indicate?

Who is this retard Rupa Huq who lecturers in Sociology at Kingston University? Do my taxes pay for his idiocy? Can’t we find him alternative governmental role emptying bins or counting traffic?

What sort of Social Scientist doesn’t understand that schools, let alone religious schools, are by definition divisive? We were always fighting the kids in the school up the road. Fortunately they weren’t partitioned on faith or skin color, they were equal opportunities beatings and black, white, yellow or brown we fought side by side united by a the torment of a horrible yellow blazer.

Ah, the good old days … how I don’t miss them.

TFI

Straight liners are essentially single issue campaigners, whether it is a caliphate in Bradford, or Kalashnikovs at Dover or Law ‘n Order in sink estates.

Triangulation matters, simply because good triangulation could encompass, or send to the pits of hell, the views of the linearists.

On that basis, I think Gordon Brown has got it more right than David Cameron. In other words Gordon does seem to see the world as something more complex than David ever envisaged.

Still voting SNP next time round, mark you.

“I’m not even a big fan, but I fail to understand why supposedely progressive people are keen to stick a sharp knife into the entire project based on a narrow understanding of what it is about, and a bunch of (naturally) distorted media stories….”

Being progressive, I tend to dislike dictators, and those who suck up to dictators, specially the murderous kind. I also think that one sign that a party has become fringe, is when people start complaining about all the distored stories coming out in the media.