George Galloway on Ken Livingston and Boris Johnson

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George Galloway: To beat Boris Johnson, Ken Livingstone must return to his true red roots
Renegade MP George Galloway is back at Westminster and eager for the fray. He tells David Cohen why 750,000 Muslim votes could decide the next Mayor and the truth about his complicated love life
David Cohen
26 April 2012
Evening Standard (London)

George Galloway, the newly elected MP for Bradford West, has warned Ken Livingstone that unless he campaigns “more as Red Ken and less as New Labour”, he will not inspire Londoners to return him to City Hall when they vote next Thursday. Speaking from his barely furnished new office in the House of Commons on the day he took occupancy, the 57-year-old brandishes his trademark Monte-cristo cigar and says: “I have a good, close relationship with Ken and I strongly hope that he wins, but if I was a betting man I would probably put my money on Boris. Ken has to turn out his core vote to win — the disadvantaged, marginal and minority communities — and I don’t think he has fired them up yet.”

Galloway, a formidable orator who knows how to come from nowhere to win elections — he was 200-1 at the bookies three weeks before polling day in the Bradford West by-election — says that he has been dismayed that Boris has been the “more vivid” campaigner. Ken can still sneak home, he insists, and if he were to suggest a roadmap as to how, it would boil down to three things. “We need to see a return of the colourful old Red Ken and less of the play-it-safe New Labour Ken. His campaign has lacked the élan, razzmatazz and hullabaloo we created on the streets of Bradford that inspired people to work for us and get out the vote. Second, he has been too defensive on his taxes. He should’ve said that all freelance broadcasters have the same arrangements, gone on the offensive and been upfront. Finally, he needs to connect to his core, including the 750,000 Muslim voters in London. If they don’t vote, he’s done for, but if they do, in numbers, he could win handsomely.”

It’s not clear whether Ken would view Galloway’s “support” as a blessing or a curse, especially since the Scotsman cuts such a controversial figure with a private love life even more florid than that of Boris and Ken. But Galloway, to quote a word he made famous when he visited Saddam Hussein in 1994, is in trademark “indefatigable” mood. He rubbishes the revelation in today’s New Statesman that he converted to Islam 10 years ago, and rebuts those who criticise him for taking a new bride 30 years his junior four months after his third wife gave birth to their son.

The news that Galloway had married his fourth wife, Putri Gayatri Pertiwi, in a Muslim ceremony in Amsterdam 24 hours after his stunning victory in Bradford West took many by surprise — including, it seems, his third wife, Rima Husseini. She told reporters she thought they were still married. Even by Galloway’s standards — he has a reputation as a womaniser and his second marriage broke up because of his affairs — leaving the third Mrs Galloway four months after she’d given birth to their second son, Faris, took the breath away.

How could he justify this behaviour? Until now, Gorgeous George has been in charming good form, but my new line of questioning irks. “You know nothing about our relationship and what really happened,” he shouts. “Let me say this: I did not leave my third wife with two young children. It was she who ended the relationship last summer. I left the house at her request last summer. It was entirely her decision.” Did she ask you to go because you were seeing other women? “No, there were no other women. And to be clear, this happened before I had met Putri at a conference on October 20 last year.” So has he divorced Rima or not? His blue eyes blaze angrily. “I was free to marry Putri or I wouldn’t have married, okay, and that is all I will say.”

Oddly Galloway won’t say whether he has divorced Rima or not. But as he and Rima were allegedly married by Muslim ceremony only and not in an English court, it might indeed leave him “free to marry” under the English courts. Yet the situation might be construed differently if he is abiding by a Muslim code of conduct.

The question arises — is he a Roman Catholic or a Muslim? “That is between me and God — I don’t discuss personal religious matters,” he says. But why be secretive? Is he afraid to lose non-Muslim votes? Indeed, in a revelation published today, the New Statesman alleges that Galloway converted more than 10 years ago in a ceremony in a hotel in Kilburn, attended by members of the Muslim Association of Great Britain. Jemima Khan writes that although the wider world do not know this, “those close to George know this” and that she knows this because she happens to know someone who attended his shahadah [Muslim conversion ceremony]. When I put this to Galloway he shifts uncomfortably in his chair but refutes her claim. “Whoever told Jemima that is lying.” So there was no ceremony? “All I’m saying is that nobody was at any ceremony where I became anything.”

Where does he pray? Church or Mosque? Another withering stare. I try to unpick his curious stance of non-disclosure, but he won’t budge. We move on to discuss “threats of serious harm” made against him revealed by the police this week. Galloway says he wasn’t expecting the police to make them public, and hasn’t talked about them until now, but “yes, I can confirm that death threats were made verbally by criminal elements within the Muslim community in Bradford and that the police are taking them very seriously. My victory is threatening to people because we are on, dare I use the word, a jihad to root out corruption, and heads will roll in Bradford. But still, you don’t expect to get death threats as an MP this side of the Irish Sea.”

In contrast, he says, he has been heartened by the warm welcome he received in Westminster after a two-year absence following his defeat in Poplar and Limehouse in the 2010 general election. “Most MPs say they’re glad to have me back, apart from hardline New Labourites, the Blair Youth as I call them, who give me the cold shoulder.” He laughs. “David Miliband didn’t acknowledge me when I stood near him in the lobby and Ed hasn’t said a word to me, but Jack Straw came up and gave me a big hug.”

Will he attend Parliament or stay away as he did in 2005 when he was the MP for Bethnal Green and Bow? “This time I am going to practically live in the chamber and people are going to hear me talk on local, national and international issues,” he says. “I love being back. I feel like this is my home, like I belong here and have something to contribute. Of course, the last two days have been pretty exciting. Jeremy Hunt is toast. He’ll go. And if the Tories dig in to defend him, the greater the damage will be.”

He intends to spend Monday to Thursday in London based at his £1.2 million house in Streatham, and weekends up in Bradford. His new wife, he says, will accompany him when she is not travelling in her job as a consultant for the Dutch research firm EMIC. “She’s extremely beautiful and has a great aura and from the moment I saw her at a conference, I knew I wanted to marry her,” he says. “It’s amazing because we’re both Dylan fans, both Jack Nicholson fans, and my favourite movie is As Good As It Gets, which is also hers, so there’s a lot of coincidences.” He sits back and smiles. “We’re soul mates.”

That, I remind him, is how he had described his previous wives when asked about them as well. “Did I?” he laughs. “Oh, well.” And from behind me, his aide, who has been sitting quietly, adds softly. “Yeah, well, George has a lot of soul.”