....With the Tories the gap between Labour and the Tories narrowing in the polls, there is every prospect now of a hung parliament. This could make Tower Hamlets the decisive influence over the next government.

Very senior Labour figures have approached George Galloway to find out our attitude towards a potential minority Labour government.  This is our response.

If there is a hung parliament and George Galloway and Abjol Miah are returned as Tower Hamlets MPs, Respect will have three minimum conditions on which we will support a Labour-led government:

A MASSIVE COUNCIL HOUSE BUILDING PROGRAMME TO ADDRESS THE HOUSING SCANDAL IN THIS BOROUGH AND ACROSS THE COUNTRY

THE RAPID WITHDRAWAL OF BRITISH TROOPS FROM ALL ILLEGAL AND POINTLESS WARS

THE RADICAL DEMOCRATISATION OF OUR CONSTITUTION WITH A FAIR VOTING SYSTEM, ABOLITION OF THE APPOINTED HOUSE OF LORDS AND CLEANING UP PARLIAMENT – NO MORE SECOND HOMES FIDDLES.

Respect MP George Galloway has hit out the amount of money spent on Public relations by the Ministry of Defence.

His comments were made after he released figures from the Ministry of Defence, obtained in response to a Parliamentary Question, which show a doubling of the budget for “public relations activities”, including on external PR consultants, in the period when Britain joined George Bush’s wars on Afghanistan and Iraq.

The MoD has confirmed that between 2001 and 2006 the amount spent on spin increased from £35.1 million to £76.2 million.

Mr Galloway said, “Senior military figures have told the Chilcot inquiry that during this period, such was the rush to war, British troops were sent to the deserts of Iraq with jungle fatigues.

“It is clear that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, however, were prepared to lavish money on the Ministry of Defence’s spin operation, which was deployed against military families who spoke out against the war, such as Rose Gentle.

“The Iraq war was wrong for many more reasons than just the financial cost and the contempt that was shown for British forces, who were sent to kill and be killed on a lie.

“But these figures provide a fitting indictment of Blair and Brown: a bottomless pit of cash to try to sell a disastrous and illegal war.”

Respect MP George Galloway warns that legalising assisted suicide could be a slippery slope leading to "Dr Death" panels deciding who lives and who dies.

Plans to ban Muslim women from covering their faces in public areas are oppressive, the leader of the Respect party said yesterday.

Salma Yaqoob’s comments came as the UK Independence Party (UKIP) announced a formal policy that would make the wearing of garments such as the burka or the niqab — both of which conceal most of the face — to be illegal.

George Galloway, the British MP leading the Viva Palestina international aid convoy to the Gaza Strip has been forced to leave Egypt, the group has said on its website.

Galloway was apparently picked up by Egyptian officials at the Rafah border crossing on Friday and driven to Cairo where he was placed on a flight back to London.

Galloway told Al Jazeera by telephone from the airport that he had been harassed by about 25 Egyptian police officer as he attempted to re-enter Gaza to join the rest of the Viva Palestina activists. 

He said Egyptian officials told him he was being sent out of the country and was now "persona non grata".

Bikya Masr sat down with British Member of Parliament George Galloway as he traverses Europe, leading the third Viva Palestina convoy from the UK to Gaza in order to deliver much needed aid to the impoverished Palestinian territory.

Currently, the group is pushing on from Turkey, where they received a warm welcome. The goal is to pass through Syria, Jordan and Egypt before entering Gaza via the Rafah Border Crossing.

Galloway has been in Parliament since 1987.

Bikya Masr: What makes Viva Palestina so important and why did you feel the need to do this?

George Galloway: This isn’t about the aid, as important as that is. But to put it in context our convoy amounts to around 200 vehicles. Gaza needs about 400 trucks a day in relief. These convoys are a statement that we won’t rest until this illegal siege is broken. We get amazing support and help through all the countries we traverse and we’re getting the message across about how the Palestinians in Gaza are suffering. The convoys also, I believe, provide a beacon of hope for the beleaguered people of Gaza that the world has not forgotten them.

The idea came to me when we were protesting outside the Israeli embassy in London when the war broke out. It was necessary to protest but not sufficient. This is the third such convoy we have run and by far the most successful so far.

BM: Do you see it as an educational endeavor that can engage the world about the issues facing Israel/Palestine?

GG: I think world opinion has changed markedly since the war last year and the massive and disproportionate assault on Gaza. We are just underlining the message with our convoys and hopefully educating and propagandizing as we go.

BM: In the UK, what is the overall sense of a mission like this? Has it ostracized you with your colleagues?

GG: Ostracized? Not at all. My colleagues are fiercely and determinedly behind it. There is no dissent. We could have hope, although not expected, better media coverage in the UK but those in the cause know what is happening.

BM: The Israeli government isn’t too keen on the Viva Palestina convoy. How do you try to rectify this sort of sentiment?

GG: We don’t deal with the Israeli government so I don’t know and certainly don’t care.

BM: How has the Jewish community in the UK received these convoys? The Muslim community?

GG: There hasn’t been noticeable support from any Jewish organizations -rather than the reverse – but progressive Jews support us. Bear in mind that we took a group of rabbis on our last convoy. The Muslim reception has been fabulous, particularly in the poorer parts of Great Britain.

BM: What are the overall goals of this specific convoy and how do you spread the word?

GG: I think I answered the first part in my first answer. We spread the word through our websites, enormous databases and through mosques and sympathetic groups. We haven’t been at a loss for support thus far. You can find out more about Viva Palestina by going to www.vivapalestina,org or at www.georgegalloway.com

BM

MPs' expenses are knocked into a top hat by the eye-watering news that David Cameron's star parliamentary candidate Zac Goldsmith - son of billionaire Jimmy and brother of comely Jemima Khan - has robbed the British taxpayer of £5.8million in dodged tax.

Nothing could speak louder about the nature of the would-be Tory government than this.

There are more Old Etonians and other public school types on Cameron's front bench than at any time since the 19th century. Their treasurer and chief funder Lord Ashcroft presides over their affairs from the tax exile of Belize.

As Gordon Brown voluntarily paid back the £500 for the painting of his shed, how about would-be MP and non-domicile Zac pays back the £5million in unpaid taxes? From time to time, I come across the deluded and the deceived who've fallen for the "We're closing in" rhetoric of the campaign against benefit cheats. Of course nobody should be allowed to rip off the benefits system. But why don't we start at the top, where the big money is going missing? Why don't we start with Lord Ashcroft and Zac Goldsmith? If Brown and Darling were men instead of mice they'd do just that, and quickly.

Who knows, guys, it might even help in the forthcoming election? Did anyone check that Tory defector, now a New Labour Defence Minister, Quentin Davies - surely the only rat ever to clamber aboard a sinking ship - hasn't slipped in a claim for the removal of that hump on his back? In the middle of a war in which he is the spectacularly unsuccessful procurement minister - a combination of essential equipment never ordered and a £6billion overspend on the otiose, the grandiose and the merely gross - he sat down to compose a £20,000 expense claim for, among other things, the repair of the bell tower on his stately home. A Labour MP, that is, with a stately home. And a bell tower. There is another Labour MP, also a Tory defector, Shaun Woodward. Married to a Sainsbury, he has SEVEN homes worth tens of millions and complete with butlers. He is the richest man in parliament, one of the richest in the country. But that doesn't stop him sitting down and filling in an expense claim form on which he extracts to the penny the exact maximum in second home allowance.

What's wrong with these people? Then there's Tory grandee, head of the controversial Conservative Friends of Israel, James Arbuthnot MP. He's the chairman of the Commons Defence Select Committee. In the middle of a war, he too had other things on his mind. He might have been watching the history channel. Or Newsnight, Question Time or the BBC.

Instead one night last summer he was watching the shopping channel QVC. As you do when you're a top parliamentarian. His eye was caught by a three-pack of garlic crushers and peelers. Well, every home should have one. But three? And at the public expense? Even Gordon Brown claimed £500 for the re-painting of his "summer house" - what the rest of us call a shed - in Queensferry.

Why? Tory toff Lord Snooty Cameron, who last year claimed to cut back his Wisteria, now bills us £1000 for Aga oil.

Two millennia ago, the Roman Emperor Nero famously fiddled whilst Rome burned. Our rulers fiddle while they burn our money and destroy what's left of parliament's reputation.

Ask not for whom Mr Quentin's bell tolls? It tolls for all of them.