In the seventh of our one-to-one interviews with London’s Mayoral candidates, reporter George Odling met with Respect Party leader and seasoned campaigner George Galloway in bustling Ladbroke Grove.
- Green Party's Sian Berry
- Lib Dem Caroline Pidgeon
- Conservative Zac Goldsmith
- Labour Sadiq Khan
- Women's Equality Party Sophie Walker
- Ukip's Peter Whittle
Mr Galloway has been elected to the Commons six times, originally as a Labour candidate and then as leader of the Respect Party following his 2003 expulsion for his fierce opposition to the war in Iraq.
The Dundee man lost his Bradford West seat to Labour in May’s General Election, and said he is poised to stand in Sadiq Khan’s constituency should the Tooting MP be voted into city hall and trigger a byelection.
He discussed council housing, tackling extremism, a ban on trucks in the capital and the “miserable” campaign of his Labour rival.
On housing
Like every candidate in the race to city hall, Mr Galloway agrees London’s housing crisis is the biggest issue facing the capital, and believes the solution is building council homes, conceding London may need to sacrifice small pockets of the greenbelt.
He said: “We have got a crisis which has to receive emergency treatment. Nobody else is proposing that.
“We need to build hundreds of thousands of council houses. It is the only way to give the two million people renting in the private sector a choice.
"Many of them are tenants of landlords who don’t give a damn except about the money they are going to collect.
“We need hundreds of thousands of council houses. It is the only democratic form of renting because you can evict your landlord and elect a new one.
“That would drive rent down in the private sector. We have the highest rents and house prices in the entire world.”
When asked how he proposed to fund the new homes, Mr Galloway answered: “How do we fund not doing it?
“This crisis … has to be tackled by the Mayor and the boroughs together in a crash programme.
“We need to build on brownfield sites, NHS and TfL land. The public sector itself is the biggest landlord in London.
“We won’t be able to solve it just by building on brownfield we need to build on select greenbelt land.”
Mr Galloway argued that 50 per cent of London’s new housing should be affordable, and said 50, rather than Boris Johnson’s 80 per cent of the market price, was how he defined the term.
He added: “Boris Johnson is in the pockets of the developers, and some of Sadiq Khan’s best friends and biggest donors are developers.”
George Galloway says Mayor Boris Johnson is "in the pockets of developers"
On his rivals for the city hall job
Mr Galloway highlighted Sadiq Khan’s pledges to be “the most pro-business Mayor ever”, and said that is the last thing London needs.
He said: “Big business doesn’t need a Mayor, it is the people who work for businesses that do.
“Landlords don’t need a Mayor, the tenants do. It is not the Mayor’s duty to tell the banks what to do.
“I will be the most pro-worker, the most pro-tenant.”
Mr Galloway said he had never spoken with Mr Khan, but described the Tooting MP’s Mayoral campaign as “miserable.”
He said: “I think he is being exposed for the lightweight that he is and I don’t just mean literally I mean figuratively also.
“Both of the main candidates are above all else boring.
“Both of the previous Mayors have been big figures. They were nobody’s robot.
“Sadiq Khan in particular even speaks like a robot.
“Zac Goldsmith looks the part until he speaks.
“I know Zac Goldsmith well, I like him and admire him. He is a principled and honourable guy but he is a Tory so nobody should vote for him.”
"Boring" according to Mr Galloway: The race's frontrunners, Zac Goldsmith and Sadiq Khan
On transport
Mr Galloway described his proposals for the capital’s transport links as “radical” and said he would demand responsibility for both underground and overground services.
He said: “All students will travel for free because of the theft of the EMA and the crippling tuition fees. These people need a break.
“Seats on the bus are empty as it is so we are already paying for it.
“London is going to be a 24-hour city and we are going to work with employers about staggering working hours.
“Up to 10,000 people a year are dying each year in the capital from pollution.
“All trucks would be banned from London in the daylight hours so they would have to deliver during the night.
“If your vehicle is highly polluting you will have to pay very dearly indeed.”
On Extremism
Mr Galloway said the important issue of extremism had been understated by the other candidates.
He said: “I am the best person to handle this problem because I understand it the best.
“I know where it comes from; I know the type of people who are most likely to be seduced onto the rocks of fanaticism.
“I would work closely with police. They would have every piece of equipment they need.
“But they need to get smart.”
Referring to an incident in which a child was questioned by police because of a spelling mistake, Mr Galloway said: “Interviewing small children because they said they lived in a “terrorist house” instead of a “terraced house” is not smart.
“The so-called Prevent programme is provoking not preventing.
“It is making more people more extreme.
“I am going to put more staff on public transport; at the moment we don’t have conductors on buses or guards on trains.
“You hear stories of racial abuse every week and that is what is radicalising people.
“Some Muslims can think ‘everybody hates us here. They are pulling the scarves off our sisters.’ How angry would that make you?”
Mr Galloway is against Heathrow expansion
On Heathrow
“If you have seen the map of the pollution hotspots you would be frightened if you look at the area around Heathrow.
“There is far too much going on in terms of traffic and the last thing we need is to make it bigger.
“We need a high speed rail link to Gatwick and it needs a new runway.”
On cuts to the Metropolitan Police force
“I normally understand why politicians do most of the things they do but this I cannot understand.
"In an economic slump and time of international emergency why on earth would you cut the police?
“These are times you need to increase the police not cut them.
“If there was a huge emergency in London like that then how would the emergency services cope?
“Boris Johnson has decimated these services in a time when we need them the most.”
“These are times you need to increase the police not cut them."
On a potential Brexit
Mr Galloway said the EU in its current form is not fit for purpose and though aware it could damage his campaign he was overtly in favour of leaving the union.
He said: “If I was the only man standing who supported [Brexit] I would still support it.
“Polls show there is a higher than average number of Londoners supporting staying in the EU.
“Since 1973 I haven’t considered the common market and the EU as a democratic institution that stops us from doing the things that need to be done.
“The steel industry is going down the swanny and there is nothing the Government can do about it.
“Railways need to be nationalised but they can’t be under the EU so we pay Richard Branson and other providers three times the subsidy that British Rail used to get.”
On why Mr Galloway is running for Mayor
Mr Galloway said: “Sadiq Khan and Zac Goldsmith rabbit on about small things. I don’t believe the Mayor of London is like being a parish councillor.
“I have always wanted it. When Ken Livingston first ran I remember thinking ‘I wish I could have done that.’ I watched his victory and that got me.
“It is a great and big job in every sense of the word."
On council tax
“I think council tax needs to increase but council tax is a bad tax.
“People should be taxed according to the wealth they actually have not locked up in a house.
“If we pursue tax evaders in the city, which I would do, we would pursue the richest tax evaders and wouldn’t have this deficit.”
On being 40/1 to win the election
According to the bookies’ odds, Mr Galloway is 40/1 to succeed Boris Johnson at city hall, third behind Sadiq Khan and Zac Goldsmith.
He said: “Once people know that I am in the field it changes.
“We have got an open top bus which hundreds of thousands if not millions of people will see over the next four weeks.
“I think those odds are accurate, that I am third favourite for the race.”
On a possible return to the Labour Party and running in Tooting
Mr Galloway said he is poised to have a crack at Sadiq Khan’s Tooting seat should he become Mayor, but a possible return to his former party would only come much later.
He said: “I think whatever happens in the Labour party is will be much later in the year.
“I think a byelection in Tooting would be very swift.
“It is easier to win a byelection than a General Election, as you don’t have a national tide of feeling to compete with.”
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