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Dr. Matt Alford<\/strong> writes about the media campaign against George Galloway<\/em><\/p>\n In early March, the late night UK comedy show, \u2018The Last Leg<\/a>\u2019, responded to Respect leader George Galloway\u2019s victory in the Rochdale by-election.<\/p>\n Presenter Adam Hills called Galloway \u2018a professional shit-stirrer \u2026 looking mildly more credible than the Monster Raving Loony Party\u2019.<\/p>\n The producers then ran the infamous clip of Galloway pretending to be a cat in the Big Brother house<\/a>, and called it \u2018cringe-inducing\u2019. I think what is far more cringe-worthy, and frankly disturbing, was when our unelected Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, declared Galloway’s win \u2018beyond alarming\u2019.<\/p>\n Hills says he was aiming to be light-hearted but, actually, he was being really serious, smearing Galloway for having six kids from three marriages. \u2018He loves<\/em> family,\u2019 Hills deadpanned. Galloway is 69, incidentally, so a handful of long-term relationships is hardly outlandish, even if the most woke show on television does persist in slut-shaming an old man.<\/p>\n Hills introduced comedian Jo Brand and asked her what she thought of Galloway. \u2018Love him!\u2019 she responded, and then retreated into naff jokes as she felt the room go as cold as ice. Maybe she was unaware of the \u2018jokes\u2019 that were underway while she was backstage \u2013 it would not surprise me because any normal \u2018left-wing\u2019 show would see Galloway’s victory as a cause for celebration.<\/p>\n Actress Rula Lenska has always called her 2006 Big Brother exchange with Galloway \u2018completely innocent improvisation<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n In turn, a close friend of mine said of Galloway\u2019s cat antics, \u2018Yes, but he shouldn\u2019t have done it because it made it look like he might do it in private too\u2019.<\/p>\n Okay, so\u2026 maybe this isn\u2019t all party politics. Maybe it is also a broader crippling of the human spirit in our current age. I can only respond with sadness \u2013 is this how far we have come as a society? Are people not allowed freedom of expression and speech? Somehow we have become comfortable with Furries, cosmetic mastectomies, and trafficked girls on PornHub, but not with a fifty-something man playing with a fifty-something woman on a gameshow that WE were watching?\u00a0<\/p>\n I mean, I get it. It WAS a funny clip. But can we not step back for two seconds after 18 years and recognise how grotesquely we have collectively warped that moment?\u00a0<\/p>\n I saw an intriguing debate between two women a few weeks ago<\/a>. Feminist lawyer Sarah Victoria Phillimore had used a trans colleague\u2019s \u2018preferred pronouns\u2019 in a work setting to be polite, even though she is publicly opposed to the notion of gender fluidity. Phillimore was loudly denounced by right-wingers on her side for not being sufficiently hard-line: in a way that exactly mirrored the reactionary \u2018woke\u2019 leftists they usually so vocally deride. It was, at best, bad \u2018strategy, they said.\u00a0Phillimore shot back: \u2018If we\u2019re going to talk strategy, [I\u2019m] not a general with an army, I’m an individual. I am a human being. But if victory is only secured in the gender wars by compelling or crushing the freedom of speech of others,\u00a0I don’t want it\u2019.<\/p>\n Galloway is not the only Labour leader subjected to such mediated thuggery. An investigation by author and journalist, Matt Kennard, for Declassified UK<\/a>, concluded that Jeremy Corbyn was the target of 34 major national media stories openly sourced by former or current officials in the UK\u2019s intelligence and military establishment, including MI5 and MI6.<\/p>\n During the 2019 general election campaign, right-wing columnist, Simon Heffer, claimed on live radio that Corbyn \u2018wants to reopen Auschwitz<\/a>\u2019. Moreover, Israel lobbyists spat venom at Corbyn: \u2018I think we should sacrifice him for all the trouble he has caused<\/a>,\u2019 said Lionel Kopelowitz, an 80 year old bigwig on the Board of Deputies of British Jews.<\/p>\n \u2018Labour MUST dump vampire Jezza<\/a>,\u2019 The Mail on Sunday<\/em> implored in 2016. Serving British Army soldiers later filmed themselves using Corbyn\u2019s image as target practice!<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n Even an attempt on Corbyn\u2019s life came in 2017. Darren Osborne, an Islamophobe who found he was unable to kill the Labour leader on the day he intended, instead rammed his van into nearby Muslims. Does anyone even remember this?<\/a><\/p>\n Two years later, a white racist called John Murphy punched Corbyn in the head while shouting pro-Brexit slogans<\/a>. The media called it an \u2018egging\u2019 (Murphy had an egg in his hand). Mass mediated amnesia seems to surround the neo-Nazi and the Islamic fanatic who murdered Jo Cox and Sir David Amess respectively.<\/p>\n