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Cymro · Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 2:25 pm Post subject: George Galloway and his venom

Never liked the man anyway, no I know I don't like the prick!

iainmhor · Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 2:33 pm Post subject:

I wonder if this well known "Irish Republican" has the same view of Irish Gaelige? No he just hates Scotland and is a super green Brit unionist who says Churchill is one of his heroes.

Cymro · Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 2:38 pm Post subject:

Pride of Respect and the Scottish Socialists?

Traditional Labour, of which Goegeous George is clearly one have always had issues with the Celtic languages in Britain. This exact same argument was used against giving the Welsh language certain rights in the 1960's, 70's and 80's. Thankfully they are a dying breed now. Hopefully they won't have too long left in Scotland either - even if they no longer live there!

iainmhor · Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 5:50 pm Post subject:

Hopefully the Scottish Socialists will have learned their lesson about this champagne socialist unionist and wont ever repeat their folly of inviting and giving him an ovation at their conference a couple of years or so ago.

RadgeJougal · Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 7:01 pm Post subject:

Why does he ask all the Palestinians to take up Hebrew?

Rinty · Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 12:23 pm Post subject:

George writes in a confrontational style, it's what his media career is based on.

The Scottish Socialists WILL have changed their mind on George Iainmhor, but for the petty reason that he supports Tommy Sheridan and not for political considerations on issues like this.

George is obviously exagerating the issue but we do have to face a couple of questions on this. If it is the case that more people in today's Scotland speak Polich and Punjabi than Gaelic then what we will do for those new scots?

Also, it IS true that schoolchildren arrive at college and university without the basic skills in English to carry out their work, what is being done about that?

Personally I do not see it is an either/or as George does. We can have a gaelic station as well as investing in these other issues.

And the idea that because he holds views on gaelic langauge station means he 'hates scotland' is ridiculous.

FYI, the time that he came to the SSP conference to speak, I also had him speak at out local Keir Hardie lecture that night (keir hardie also a scot who represented the east end of london in parliament). We were able to get him to speak at thse events because George happened to be coming up to Glasgow for the Scotland match!

It gets quite ugly (and worrying) when we start to slag someone off for representing an English constituency. What next? Only English people for english constuituencies? Only scots for scottish constituencies?

The response to this is the ugly side of nationalism. BY all means disagree with George on his views on the language of parts of Scotland being subsidised, but the nature of the response has implications beyond that.

I assume we will now see all of you fully support similar subsidies for a scottish polish-language channel and a punjabi scottish tv station? If not, why not? Are these people not scots?

I suport subsidy for gaelic, support that station, support subsidy for scots langauge as well, but I reject the idea that all scots must be scottish, that all scots must only represent scottish constituencies or that all scots must suport every intitaitive on gaelic or they are traitors.

Sad!

Red Justice · Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 6:29 pm Post subject:

It gets quite ugly (and worrying) when we start to slag someone off for representing an English constituency. What next? Only English people for english constuituencies? Only scots for scottish constituencies?

The response to this is the ugly side of nationalism. BY all means disagree with George on his views on the language of parts of Scotland being subsidised, but the nature of the response has implications beyond that.

I assume we will now see all of you fully support similar subsidies for a scottish polish-language channel and a punjabi scottish tv station? If not, why not? Are these people not scots?

I suport subsidy for gaelic, support that station, support subsidy for scots langauge as well, but I reject the idea that all scots must be scottish, that all scots must only represent scottish constituencies or that all scots must suport every intitaitive on gaelic or they are traitors.

Sad![/quote]

I agree on the first paragraph Rinty I do not like to see such either. This is a problem of the union where such views may exist.

I have not heard George's views on Gaelic but have listened to him on Talksport radio and hope his views on Gaelic are not offending like his comments about our Scottish history on his radio show.

I thought ethnic minorities had cable or satellite channels but had to pay subscriptions which is unfair. Does Canada provide Scottish or Gaelic channels for Scots in exile? I do not know much about say Nova Scotia. However as funding is much cut from Westminster or spending constraints it leaves the Scotland in a difficult boat. I would rather my license fee was divided between the minority languages of Celtic nations and our ethnic communities than bbc with it's London bias.

I have always supported promotion of Galeic as I can speak some Scottish Gaelic myself "Tha Gaidhlig beag agam" however I would define lack of support for Gaelic as cultural apathy or ignorance rather than accuse folks of being traitors so I hope Scots are not behaving in this manner.
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Cymro · Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2008 1:44 pm Post subject:

In regards to the fact he's representing an English constituency etc. What I was getting at was the fact he seemingly put so much effort into attacking the Gaelic language in a Scottish newspaper when surely as a high profile MP for what I believe is Englands most deprived ward he'd have far more important things to be getting on with.

His main priority is getting people to see him, not looking after the people who (stupidly) voted for him.

kevin04 · I Love 'Our Scotland' Joined: 06 Mar 2007 Posts: 348

I quite like some of GG's radio shows and paid to see him in Edinburgh. He has some valuable points in his attack but he's as always so one sided, There are over 100,000 people in Scotland who can understand Gaelic and also with the demand for 4 new schools in the Highland area, the language is surviving and I think will continue to grow. I've recently started a Access Course into Gaelic (1week on) so my knowledge is 'Ciamar a tha thu?' at present but there are 2 poles who live in Scotland on my course learning the language.

GG should take a look at the records showing bi-ling pupils have a fantastic record in education in Scotland from the Gaelic areas, Gaelic is one of the Indigenous languages from Scotland, his point about more Polish speakers is not relevant as Scotland is not Poland - Scotland is Scotland with what used to have a large number of our population speaking this language, take a look at recent Mod', Gaelic learning schemes to see the language is attracting new speakers and learners, I was speaking recently to a lecturer who teaches Gaelic as a class to pupils in Forfar and told me that throughout Scotland there is not enough teachers to cope with the demand of the language.

Rinty · Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 8:07 am Post subject:

"surely as a high profile MP for what I believe is Englands most deprived ward he'd have far more important things to be getting on with"

His radio programme is not his constituency work. I mean we could isolate any action or statement from any MSP or MP and say that sme Cymru but saying what Gerge did about gaelic does not mean that he iisnt concentrating on other stuff.

"His main priority is getting people to see him, not looking after the people who (stupidly) voted for him."

His main priority on his radio show is creating adversorial debates and controversy. I would think that many people in his constituency voted for him to highlight the war and draw publicity to it, that was a lot of his campaign at the time.

I dont consider voters in Bow any more "stupid" than any other voter. I am sure they were thinking of Galloways ability to draw media attention and that was a factor when voting for him.

Cymro · Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 10:53 am Post subject:

Firstly I didn't say the people who voted for him where stupid. I do think that it was stupid to vote for this egomaniac, it's just voting for him was a stupid decision. We all make them!

Regarding his work as an MP and his work as a Radio Broadcaster, TV Presenter (RAJ TV) and a Columist. I do think that this guy does put more attention into getting himself seen than anything else. I was speaking to a person who was in a Labour Party Conference a few years ago when George was in the party and he told me that a ruder man he's never come across.

What's exceptionally pathetic from this poor excuse of a man is that he makes a name for himself as some sort of champion of the people and of the minority cultures in this country (which is fair enough) but then makes a huge song and dance out of this particular minority group. He's a typical creature of the old Labour Party in the UK. If it wasn't for his ego he'd still happily be in the Labour Party, it's nothing more than personality that lead to him leaving, not principle.