Plan B Forum

George Galloway wins Bradford West by-election

George Galloway scored a dramatic victory in the Bradford West by-election, securing a 10,000-plus majority in what he called a "massive rejection" of mainstream parties.

He claimed the result represented a "Bradford spring".

"By the Grace of God we have won the most sensational victory in British political history," the maverick Respect candidate wrote on Twitter as votes were counted.

Respect swept from fifth place at the 2010 general election to a commanding victory for the ex-Labour anti-war campaigner against his former party on a swing of 36.59%.

It was "the most sensational result in British by-election history bar none", he said on stage after being declared the victor with well over half the total votes.

The reverse is a serious blow for Labour which entered polling day as overwhelming favourite to retain the seat at the end of a fraught week for the Government.

Instead, it became the first Opposition party to slump to defeat in a mid-term poll since the Liberal Democrats took Romsey from the Tories in 2000.

Party sources pointed to a massive slump in the Conservative vote as evidence of the Government's unpopularity. The Liberal Democrats lost their deposit.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... ction.html

George Galloway weds new Dutch bride (his fourth and who's younger than his daughter) - just four months after his last wife had a baby
By Christian Gysin and Colin Fernandez
PUBLISHED: 21:58 GMT, 2 April 2012 | UPDATED: 08:01 GMT, 3 April 2012


George Galloway outside his London home with his new wife Putri

After his sensational by-election victory of last week, he might have been expected to pause for breath.
Instead, three-times-married ‘Gorgeous George’ Galloway flew to Amsterdam and took a fourth bride – a woman 30 years his junior.
The ceremony, in a hotel, happened less than 48 hours after the MP took the Labour stronghold of Bradford West with an astonishing 10,000-plus majority for his Respect party.
And it was a mere four months since his third wife had given birth to a son – their second.
The latest bride of 57-year-old Mr Galloway is anthropologist Putri Gayatri Pertiwi. At 27 she is two years younger than his first child, Lucy, a mother of two.
The latest bizarre development in the life of the flamboyant politician was confirmed yesterday at his bride’s office in Amsterdam, where he was at her side.
The former Miss Pertiwi, a consultant with a Dutch research firm, had earlier been listed as his fourth wife on his Wikipedia site. ‘Yes, it is true that George and I have married,’ she told the Daily Mail. ‘The service was on Saturday in a hotel in Amsterdam.’
Mr Galloway then took over the phone and added: ‘Well, it looks like you have an old-fashioned scoop on your hands.’
The former Labour MP for Glasgow Hillhead went on: ‘Putri is an anthropologist and child rights specialist and we have known each other for about six months.
‘The next few months will be interesting because I will be working back in Westminster as an MP. But we will be moving around between London, Bradford and Amsterdam.’
Last night Mr Galloway arrived with his bride at his £1.4million house in Streatham, south London. She smiled and said: ‘Thank you’ when she was congratulated on the wedding.
The fourth Mrs Galloway is a Dutch-born researcher of Indonesian extraction who took a degree in cultural anthropology at the University of Utrecht. She also studied in Amsterdam before taking a masters degree in children’s rights at Amsterdam University.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1qzI9wDiH