For those who are confused, The Slog offers a resume of the facts that led to George Galloway popping up as the Respect candidate for Poplar & Limehouse.

When George Galloway won the Bethnal & Bow seat for Respect in 2005, his majority was an anorexic 845 votes. This made it one of the least safe seats in the country. George soon announced that he would hold the seat for one term only.

Galloway’s victory could not have been achieved without the support of young Bengali and Bangladesihi Islamists who live in the constituency. So George has now left an ethnic colleague to defend the slim 845 votes majority, and moved a short distance to pastures new.

On 3rd August 2007, the Daily Mail reported that Galloway was interested in the Blackburn constituency, and GG did indeed make several exploratory visits there. Blackburn isn’t a short distance from Bethnal Green, but does have a lot of Islamic constituents. The current MP for Blackburn is Jack Straw, the Justice Minister. The Ministry of Justice sponsors the activities of the Boundaries Commission. The Chairman of the Boundaries Commission at the time was the now unseated Speaker Michael Martin.

Michael Martin and George Galloway go back a long way. They’re both Scottish Catholics, and in a Guardian piece lauding Martin’s ethics in 2009, the Gorgeous One noted that ‘Thanks to Speaker Martin my grandson Sean enjoyed the first Catholic baptism in the House of Commons Crypt since Cromwell turned it into a stable’.

Later in August 2007, the Boundaries Commission published its report recommending that Bethnal & Bow be changed, and some of its wards given to a new constituency called Poplar & Limehouse. Two of the three wards given to the new Poplar seat (Shadwell and St Dunstans)are Respect strongholds. In both these wards, Respect is the biggest Party. The effect of the Boundary Commission’s recommendations has been to create two potential Respect seats where previously there was one. And also, for Galloway to lose interest in Jack Straw’s Blackburn seat: seven days after the Commission’s report, he announced his decision to stand towards the end of his Talksport radio programme. During the course of his statement, he made a number of derogatory comments about the existing MP for this area, Jim Fitzpatrick, an act that produced three complaints of misuse to Ofcom. Ofcom found in favour of the complainants.

It will still be hard for Galloway to win in the new seat: the most likely beneficiary of a swing away from Labour will be the Tory candidate Tim Archer. Equally, it will be much harder for his hard-working Islamic colleague to defend that tiny minority in the old Bethnal Green & Bow seat.

The upside for the Government is that the Minister of Justice is now safe from the embarrassment of losing his Blackburn seat….and having the fires of Islamism further stoked up in his own backyard.

This series Aspects of Galloway will be continued indefinitely.

EDITOR’S NOTE: With 650 seats up for election, The Slog’s resources will be confined to two constituencies – Buckingham and Poplar & Limehouse – where it seems to us the Shit count is highest.