‘George Galloway is a pro-abortion choice for women Catholic, condemner of the London bombings and advocate of revolutionary violence, peace campaigner and fomenter of trouble in the East End, hard-line Islamist who charms older more temperate Muslim opinion, and stuffer of ballot boxes who argues that there is no real democracy in Britain’. Not my opinion – just a compendium of comments made and things written over a fortnight of researching Gorgeous George. And on this basis, I think we are allowed to ask, “What’s your game, chummy?”

But first, why does George interest me at all? Well, as it’s five years ago now and the person involved has become spy in the sky, I’ll tell you a short story.

Mr MacLean, I’ll call him – although of course, it wasn’t his name. It was a rowdy supper – not exactly violent, but certainly as robust as the Spanish wine we were all drinking. MacLean came as the unexpected guest in a party of fellow revellers. Despite the late autumn date, the evenings there were still warm. There is something about southern Europe’s late-evening cafe life that I find irresistible. MacLean and I started talking about this: he felt the same way, and we hit it off immediately.

Soon we discovered a shared interest in history, and the manipulation of it by the victors. I mentioned that the Middle East was the one place where it seemed to be manipulated by the losers; and I remember thinking (the way you do when you’ve had a few) what an astounding insight that was.

“The history of the Middle East is being written by powerful people” said McLean enigmatically. I nodded vaguely, the way I do when I haven’t a clue what people are on about. The conversation continued; and before long (Galloway’s victory over the Daily Telegraph being recent history) George’s name came up.

And then, without preamble, MacLean said “He’s an agent”. Even when a little drunk, ‘agent’ is one of those words that can have a sobering effect. He looked serious, so I played along.

“Oh really?” I asked, “Who for?” His smile returned.

“Who do you think?” he said. I looked blank, so he continued.

“Which regime do you think has spent the last eighty years saying anything, twisting everything and supporting anyone in pursuit of its goals?”

I could’ve been a smartarse and said “How long have you got?” but I understood perfectly well which State he meant.

“But it doesn’t exist any more – remember?”

“Doesn’t it?” he replied.

I got very drunk after that. I’ve no idea if MacLean was a fantasist, a spy, a diplomat or just a wind-up artist. I do think, however, that he was very bright. It wasn’t exactly James Bond stuff, this brief encounter. But it did give me a lasting interest in GG.

Conspiracy theories swirl around Galloway’s head, and for all that he affects an affronted astonishment whenever faced with them, the truth is that he behaves in a manner designed to encourage this Man of Mystery persona. Over the years, I’ve had people swear blind that he ‘has the negatives’ when it comes to New Labour: but none of these people were actually in a position to know, and none of these ‘he’s got pictures of Mandelson with little boys’ purveyors ever strike me as anything other than gullible gossips who like a good yarn.

I much prefer, as always, to watch what the subject of an investigation does (or has done in the past) and ignore what they say. This is particularly apposite in the case of The Gorgeous One, because every week he says something that contradicts that outburst of the week before.

So let’s rewind into George’s history.

Galloway joined the Labour Party at 13 years old, and within five years was secretary of the Dundee West constituency party. He quickly gained a reputation for being Hard Left, and something of an electoral buccaneer…a reputation he continues to have in the East End. On 5 May 1977, he contested his first election campaign in the Scottish district elections but failed to hold the safe Labour seat at Gillburn, Dundee. He was beaten by the Independent candidate Bunty Turley, who was a trade unionist running on the campaign slogan “enough is enough” after allegations were made about Galloway’s personal and financial behaviour.

His support for the Palestinian cause began in 1974. For a while, he persuaded the local council to fly the Palestinian flag outside its offices.

In 1981, Galloway wrote an article in Scottish Marxist supporting Communist Party affiliation with the Labour Party. In response, Denis Healey, deputy leader of the Labour Party, tried and failed to remove Galloway from the list of Prospective Parliamentary Candidates.

From November 1983 to 1987, Galloway was General Secretary of War On Want, a British charity that campaigns against poverty worldwide. The Daily Mirror accused him of living luxuriously at the charity’s expense, and later he reportedly won £150,000 from the Mirror in an unrelated libel lawsuit. However, more than two years after Galloway stepped down to serve as a Labour MP, the UK government investigated War on Want. It found accounting irregularities from 1985 to 1989. Galloway had been General Secretary for the first three of those years. During his term of office, he attended a WoW conference on Mykonos, where he had a wonderful time and admitted that “I met many women, some of whom were known carnally to me”.

In 1990, a spoof classified advertisement appeared in the Labour left weekly Tribune headed “Lost: MP who answers to the name of George”, and claiming that the MP had been seen in Romania. It went on to say he hadn’t attended constituency meetings at all for some time. George sued Tribune, and won…but not about the Romania part of the story. That bit appears to have been true.

Galloway became the Vice President of the Stop the (Iraq) War Coalition in 2001. Following numerous outlandish acusations against all those involved in the Coalition, the DPP considered prosecuting him under the Incitement to Disaffection Act. For some reason (given there were allegedly plenty of grounds for it) the case was dropped. Before and after this time, his relationship with the Saddam regime was both controversial and seemingly mendacious.

In 2004, George sued the Daily Telegraph for publishing documents obtained in Baghdad suggesting that he had taken kickbacks from Saddam. He would probably have lost the case, but for a Telegraph blunder in making allegations in its leader column. Once again, GG walked away with £150,000.

On 5 May 2005, Galloway won the Bethnal Green & Bow seat by 823 votes. Constitutional Affairs minister David Lammy later criticised Galloway for the “manner in which he won that seat, whipping up racial tensions, dividing some of the poorest people in this country, I think it was obscene.” Lammy further called him a “carpetbagger.” This view of Galloway’s style is supported by many residents in the constituency – especially moderate Muslims and white voters.

Boundary changes have persuaded GG to stand in Poplar & Limehouse in the 2010 election. This is third time he has fallen victim to boundary changes; conspiracy theorists also have a field-day with that one.

And that’s George Galloway’s potted life in politics. Behaviourally, there are several recurrent themes:

* He attracts clouds with even more magnetism than Lord Mandelson

* He also attracts rather more constituency boundary changes than would be normal

* He is hard-line left wing

* He supports the Arab cause

* He has faced several accusations of financial irregularity

* He is extremely litigious, and always wins in Court

* He tends to front up organisations active in middle east and Third World politics and aid

* His politics are confrontational and divisive

* He always seems to have an answer for any accusation impugning anything he has said or done

* He’s a showman, and has in the past been a womaniser

What one can observe however – without in any way making the accusation of sedition or working for a foreign power – is that there is an uncanny closeness between the Moscow line on things, and where George tends to be on any issue. And looked at from that perspective, his inconsistency isn’t quite so clear.

NEXT: GEORGE AND COMMUNISM – A COMMON LINK?