A lot has been written about the ‘shock’ result in Bradford.  How Labour were complacent and misjudged their supposedly strong backing. How they were taken by surprise by the levels of on-line activity.  They cited the make-up of the ethnic grouping that responded so strongly to Galloway’s views, particularly women and the young.

In short they were looking for the political explanation for failure.

Few were prepared simply to credit Galloway for being so very good at pitching!

 What he said was spot on for this audience, if not the wider one, but it was the way he said it that made the huge difference. As Helen Pidd in the Indie, giving him a five star rating for ‘personality’, said:

“The Respect party didn’t win a 10,000 majority, George Galloway did; his easy charm, peerless way with words and genius ability to play to his own strengths while exploiting others’ weaknesses (and hiding his own).”

The same journalist writing in the Guardian gr about the way he spoke to Muslim women directly quoted one of them :”He made the women feel important. He made youngsters feel important and that’s a lesson for the other parties to learn.” Like him or not, he knows how to make the emotional connection vital in any pitch.