Hello, Owen Jones here, welcome to the podcast. George Galloway, hmm, quite a controversial

figure to say the least. We don't get on, I should just make that very clear. I block

some on Twitter about over half a decade ago, and I find, on politics, many of the positions

he takes are profoundly reactionary to say the least. He said some terrible things. More

recently, that includes jumping on the anti-trans bandwagon. So transphobic, you know,

almost expect a national newspaper to hire him. But he's standing as candidate in the

battle he's been by election. So I went to chat to him, and as I always do in these interviews

and listen to courteously, I asked the questions that I'm particularly interested in, not least

about why he voted for the Conservative Party and called himself a lefty after he said

he gouged his eyes out rather than do that about his association with Farage, his denunciations

of Black Lives Matter, sort of rhetoric you'd expect from Lovence Fox, who is supposed

about George Galloway very fondly, it must be said. But on Twitter, various people have

gone, ooh, you're a big Galloway fan and supporter, you love George Galloway. The evidence

for that being that I, after interviewing him, had a picture taken of me holding a chai

and a delicious chai, and an iced tea, which was given to me free by the end of the cafe

in exchange he asked me to pose with them. Galloway was in the background and that was evidence

apparently that I am a massive Galloway supporter. I'm not, but I do speak to people of all

political persuasions within reason, and this by-election is very, very important for

Labour and for the country, and he's a very big part of the story, not least disillusioned

amongst Muslim voters in Batlene's Ben, they're not exclusively Muslim voters, and many

of them are going to vote for George Galloway and I'm interested in finding out why.

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