Galloway wins: his speech transcribed

Here's a rough but, I think, fairly accurate transcript of Galloway's victory speech:

"Tony Blair, this and other defeats that New Labour have suffered are for Iraq. All the people you've killed, all the lies that you told, have come back to haunt you. Labour should sack you tomorrow morning.

"New Labour plumbed new depths in this campaign, and now the police and the courts will try to fathom exactly what they'v been up to. But it was no aberration - the reason this count took so long; the turnout was so low; that hundreds if not thousands of ghost figures appeared on the electoral role but only 68% of postal ballots were cast. Tower Hamlets is in the grip of a corrupt political culture, and when we begin our campaign on Monday to take control of this borough council it will be as a new broom to sweep that political corruption away.

"Oona King boasted she was going to finish me off. I will be more gracious. I have not finished her off. She's an able person who will be back in politics and in Parliament. It wasn't her defeat, it was a defeat for Tony Blair and new Labour. And I'd like to thank Oona King for her eight years in this constituency and wish her well for what will be her resumed political career.

"But I can't thank the Borough of Tower Hamlets, which has put together a shambles of an electoral role that would disgrace a banana republic. It is about time you tender your resignation.

"There is a revolt spreading throughout east London against the betrayals of east London and you ain't seen nothing yet."  OR

Comments

[oscar]

See the main Red Pepper website for more analysis of Respect, and in particular this article:
http://www.redpepper.org.uk/brit/x-apr2005-respect.htm

[looby]

Thanks so much for transcribing that. It was quite an astonishing speech.

As I remember it, after "Tower Hamlets", he said "which is in the grip of a corrupt administration", rolling those r's to terrific effect!