George Galloway will be a nuisance for Keir Starmer

The return of ‘Gorgeous’ George Galloway to the House of Commons may not be Keir Starmer’s worst nightmare, but it is certainly the recurrence of a bad dream. No one who recalls how Galloway harried Tony Blair over the Iraq war twenty years ago can deny that the new Workers Party MP for Rochdale can be a powerful Commons speaker. His Old Testament-style may seem ridiculous to many, like his adoption of that fedora – which he presumably will have to discard in the hatless debating chamber – but on issues of war, and the plight of the dispossessed, he can certainly rouse emotion. His declamatory style goes down well in the mosques attended by Galloway’s many Muslim voters, who applaud his campaign’s condemnation of ‘genocide’ in Gaza.

Most Labour MPs will avoid him like the plague, but the new MP will no doubt be embraced by the former Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who has also had the distinction of being given the boot by Labour. Galloway