Galloway - how much is his BB appearance costing the taxpayer?

Based on the basic salary of £61,708 paid to every MP, the time he has wasted doing absolutely none of his duties in representing his constituents in parliament whilst partaking in 'Celebrity Big Brother' has has cost the taxpayer over £1000 already - for an ongoing counter you can click here.

Incidentally, despite during his election campaign often stating about how, if elected, he was going to stick it to the government as often as possible after the way they behaved with regard to the Iraq war, Galloway happens to have the third worst attendance and voting record of *any* MP.

The other 3 happen to be the two Sinn Fein representatives in Northern Irish constituencies who refuse to take up their seats, and a Labour MP who recently died after suffering a long term illness.

For a man who's party is named 'Respect', does his lack of attendance in parliament followed by his choice to go into the brother house this time around not show disrespect to his own constituents and also towards his own position as an MP? I think it does personally.

Surely his job (pretty well paid at £61k I might add, plus a damned healthy expenses package) is to be in parliament, not blatant self promotion of himself or his party at the expense of these duties? Now whilst it is fair to say those in prominent positions within their own parties (Blair, Cameron, and others) also indulge in party promotion and campaigning, maybe at the expense of time spent serving their constituents directly, but their's doesn't involve being shut off from the outside world completely for a sizeable length of time in the same way as his stay in the Big Brother house will.

 

and imagine how much he is getting paid to be in that house by channel 4

 

The time is probably taken as a holiday, don't think its all that different from any other MP, people just like to have a go at George Galloway because of his infamous statement to Hussain

God Gawd! You mean, a politician, actually lied to people!?! Jesus, hang 'im now, none of the others would ever do that to us.

 

Tbh I'm more concerned that he is considered a celb at all.

But on topic, he has made himself a huge target by going in there.

 

Hmm, how'd you mean a huge target?

 

Whats your point? That because other politicians are hypocritical liars, its therefore perfectly okay for Galloway to be the same? Two wrongs don't make a right /

Don't misunderstand me here, I'm not saying that Galloway is the devil re-incarnated as a moustached and somewhat orange politician and that the lies he tells are somehow worse than those told by other politicians (heck many would argue that lieing over going to war is many times worse), but he gets a fairly easy ride amongst certain left-wing and anti-war circles - witness the fawning over the bloke in the thread we had about his appearance before the US senate, for example.

But look a bit closer and you see some of the statements Galloway makes and excuses he makes for occasions when he's courted controversy are just rubbish -such as claiming he accidentally used a Scottish colloquialism to address Saddam Hussein in front of the worlds media, to excuse the comment where he said 'Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability'.

Apparently he said 'yoos', which means he was addressing the Iraqi people not Saddam. The man is no idiot though - he is a brilliant and charismatic public speaker (I know, I've seen him myself last year when he came to uni to give a speech) yet he claims that, in front of the cameras, and addressing a controversial dictator through a translator, he inadvertently slipped into using a local dialect in a way that meant he could very easily be misinterpretted as saluting Saddam. Surely he should have chosen his words more carefully? To my mind its clear he has personal admiration for Saddam - read Galloways book and this becomes clear in many passages.

The way Galloway presents himself as the bastion of truth, the only one prepared to stand up to Blair and co and say what he really thinks in the name of freedom and peace, is utterly odious to me when its absolute fact that most of the time he can't even be bothered to turn up to parliament.

 

Ok, I'd be inclined to agree, he was sucking up to Hussain, but to imply that was anything more then the unofficial but definately policy line taken by the government back then would be more then a little misguided.

Yes, he's lied in the way he's put himself forward, and he's lied about what he's going to do after an election, I just don't see how thats any different from any other politician.

I'm not saying that makes it ok, but because he's disliked in the media people hound him about things like that.

I'd have no problem with that if all out politicians got hounded by the media to actually do what they said they'd do and take less holidays, but when its just one, and its one the media loves to hate, its seems like its just an opertunity for a good story and a good opertunity to give the mob another person to hate.

 

I mean that by going into the house he has opened himself up to even more criticism such as the points Will made at the begining of this thread.

 

The reason people "fawned" over him is that he was the only politician to express to the US Senate exactly what many people are thinking, and to do so eloquently, no-holds-barred, no punches pulled, and with passion. For that moment, he represented the voice of the many British people who feel that they have been dragged into an unwanted and messy war by the US government. People identified with his sentiments (or rather, they felt that he was the only politician to identify with theirs). That Galloway lives in a glass house himself was immaterial for that moment.

Doesn't mean, of course, that Galloway isn't a scewed-up little puppy himself, with some rather inconsistent morality. Many of his psychological dynamics are very similar to those found in some dictators, and I suspect there was some projection going on. But so what if he sucked up to Saddam Hussein? Western governments did so for over a decade in the 80's. All Galloway can be accused of in that respect is poor timing.

 

Actually Nexxo, we carried on being pretty pally with him even after the first Gulf War. After the first Gulf was done, Britain resumed selling him vaccines that can easily be reverse engineered into bio/chem(cannae mind which of the two) weapons.

I won't bother mentioning all the dealings the US had with him, it'd be a long list.

 

"has cost the taxpayer over £1000 already"

That works out to be about 0.00002p per person in the UK (approx)....
I dunno..i think i maybe can live with that....

 

Absolutely right. I did make that long list some time ago, involving the US, the UK and my native country, Holland (the Dutch will sell their souls if they can make a buck...), and it was sobering:

Recently in Holland, one of the businessmen selling chemicals to Saddam was sentenced for complicity in war crimes o a hefty decade or so in prison.

 

Supurb, we arm them, then we invade them for using those armaments, then we sell some more to them, then we invade them again for...something, then we set up a pro-us country, then we no doubt arm them again, and by the way, we'll be having your oil.

Great plan!

 

oh by the way, he was supposed to attend a very important metting for his area today about a proposed underground train line going through the area.

so its nice to see him doing his job attending important meetings, going to parliment etc

 

I just wish people would make as much of a fuss over the other non-attending MP's as they make over Galloway

How many of you even know who your MP is? Or what they're doing to represent you today, tomorrow, or next week? Too many MPs are just completely anonymous, party-line-following nobodies.

Sam

 

My MP is Rob Marris (Labour), who incidentally lives in the house behind mine in Wolverhampton

The other non-attending MPs need to get their act together too - but the fact remains, Galloway is the most-non attending MP short from those who are so ill they've ended up dead or those who don't actually believe in government in Westminster (the two Sinn Fein reps).

From where I'm sitting it almost reads as though some of you are almost apologising for Galloway by saying 'such and such MPs are just as bad/almost as bad,' or talking about what Blair has done in Iraq, as though Blairs wrong and misguided actions somehow make Galloways conduct before and after the Iraq war perfectly acceptable.

 

Well, the thing is, Galloway was elected entirely on the back of an anti-war agenda. I don't watch Big Brother, but seeing as more people my age would probably vote for that rather than vote in the elections, there's an argument that any anti-war sentiment or publicity he managed to get across through BB is actually *furthering* what he was elected to do...

As for whether what he has done with Saddam is any better or worse then the UK/US governments, that's obvious. Our government put him in power, supplied him with weapons, and supported him for years. That's far worse than meeting him a few times and allegedly doing some oil trades with him...

Of course, that doesn't mean Galloway is an innocent, far from it. I think he's a horrible, egotistical, man with some highly dubious actions to his name. It's just that some of his critics are far worse than he's ever been!

Oh, but watching him (rightly) rip that senate commitee to shreds was absolutely priceless

Sam

 

Quite.

Not true. You wondered why people "fawned" over him, and I offered an explanation. You say he is a bad politician, we say: "And your point is?..."

We are not saying that the actions of other politicians, or of Blair with regard to the Gulf war specifically, make Galloway's actions less objectionable; Galloway's actions just do not seem more objectionable by comparison. We don't see what's the big deal about Galloway specifically.

 

Maybe Galloway is best locked up in this god-awful show instead of getting up to his usual carry on http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-1210232,00.html

 

And again:

Also consider that many of our other politicians are still sucking up to plenty equally disturbed dictators at this very moment. The news just doesn't make as big a deal about it.