The 'Tommy and George Show': caricaturing the left

[luke]

It’s always predictable to read the pantomime-type representations of the left, particularly at election times.

George Galloway has been in Scotland speaking to packed gatherings in support of Solidarity candidate Tommy Sheridan. I can vouch for the excellence of two of those meetings, the latter at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, in particular, where Galloway and Sheridan between them gave a bravura performance that can only be dreamt of by the bulk of MPs and MSPs.

Between their oratorical flourishes, we got some fine illustrations from Sheridan of the staggering concentrations of wealth held by a corporate select in the UK, while pensioners struggle to heat themselves and children stay undernourished for lack of a basic school meal.

And from Galloway, we got a study in how those same elites benefit not just from cash-gift peerages and other political largesse, but from the much more serious “protectionism” of Britain’s corporate-thieving tax system.

Sheridan’s well-informed statistical discussion ranged from the disgrace of poverty levels in Scotland to the case for council tax reform, from the open-cheque cost of the war in Iraq to the attack on public sector wages, from the need to embrace economic migrants and assist asylum seekers to the case for banning airguns.

And from Galloway we got a timely reminder of the complicity of First Minister Jack McConnell and his other war/Trident-supporting New Labour associates.

All vital issues for the media to comment on.

And yet, what kind of reportage do we find? This kind:

https://politics.guardian.co.uk/scotland ... 07,00.html

https://politics.guardian.co.uk/scotland ... 95,00.html

https://news.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?id=641432007
(A subscription needed here, but you get the picture from the title and opening lines.)

https://www.theherald.co.uk/politics/new ... 34.0.0.php

https://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid ... =617272007

[faceless]

I wish I'd been there for that event at the concert hall - bugger. Anyway, Tommy Sheridan is on Newsnight Scotland tonight, so I'll try and cap it.

[faceless]

here's the 10 minute interview from Newsnight tonight...

https://www.sendspace.com/file/gxefwx

[popinjay]

"One was made famous by prancing on prime time television in a tight red leotard and giving a surreal impression of a cream-licking pussycat."

Obviously they don't have that video of him in the senate in Guardianland.

[faceless]

that was exactly what I thought too popinjay - pish writing eh?

[popinjay]

Indeed.

[faceless]

Here's a short bit of the meeting with Galloway and Sheridan where Galloway describes Jack McConnell as "Mini me"

CLICK HERE