George what will be your first priority
when you'll be mayor for
London well housing is the first
priority but that'll take a bit
longer so I guess the first thing that
I'll do is send Max Kaiser into the city
of London to tell the city of London
Corporation to tell the city of London
Corporation the party is over the party
is over
yeah excellent
idea though he'll say a bit more roughly
than
me Max is because he's an American in
favor of capital punishment he wants to
put them at the traitor's gate I favor
life imprisonment without any
possibility of
parole why can't Justice be
fun it's an interesting one uh politics
uh you know in general has failed so
what makes you think you'll
succeed well the the mainstream
political parties have failed the three
cheeks of the same
ARS have failed and that's
why fewer and fewer people vote for them
it's why people search around in
Scotland a tsunami has just wiped out
the labor party which when I was the
chairman of the labor party in Scotland
was completely
unsalable utter it was
incomprehensible when I was the 26y old
chairman of the labor party in Scotland
that the day would ever come when we
would be challenged by anyone but Tony
Blair and the Iraq War and Gordon Brown
and the neoliberal economics the
thatcherism that they came to stand for
was just swept away and a million people
voted for the greens in the general
election the idea that the the
answer the idea that the answer is to
get all
aspirational whatever that means as if
poor people are not aspirational
although sometimes their aspiration is
to have something to put on the table
for their children that night that's
aspiration too you know that's
aspiration the idea that if you become
more like Tony BL
the people who just wiped you out in
Scotland are going to come back or the
million who voted for the greens are
going to come back or
even the 4 million who voted ukip are
going to come back sure we have
profound disagreements with
ukip but what they in part
reflect is a rejection of the mainstream
political parties and the political
system that we have and when you've got
a parliament full of expenses cheats who
spend more time filling in their
expenses forms than they do looking
after the people how could anyone
blame the public for having such a poor
view of
politicians I'm not an ordinary
politician haa to answer your question
respect is not an ordinary movement
nobody listens to me and thinks he's
just like all the rest that's why the
media hates me so much because I'm not
an expenses thief because I never
betrayed the public because I never lied
to the public because I told the truth
as I saw it on every issue to the public
that's why the media hates me so
if I'm elected with Max at my right hand
everything's going to change you've
heard it believe
it um this one is is more detailed it's
from Nick Nick smart from souk uh does
the city need any more runways if so
where would you build one all
runways
well I like
airplanes I like Aviation I like
airports and I think the
airports provide well-paid
trade unionized jobs in very large
numbers in a way that very very few
other employers now
[Music]
do but the west of London cannot afford
more
Aviation over it the pollution of the
air the noise the disruption is already
at breaking
point I believe we need a new Runway and
I believe it should be at London Gatwick
I think that Gatwick is the best
solution for the perceived and I think
real shortage of Aviation Space uh in
the country and they don't have votes in
the London meril
um I know you've you've gone into um
your plan for housing crisis but the
these are a few questions that have come
up once again so if you could just
detail a bit more about what you'd like
to do about what you can do what you're
planning to do about the housing crisis
that would be great well I I did see
that 50% of any development and the
mayor has this power people have to
submit planning applications for for
these developments to the mayor of
London and any developer who hears about
this meeting should know that I am
serious Ken was serious too but he was
unable to implement the 50%
Mark Boris was not serious cut it to 25
and achieved less than 10% but there's
another issue what do they mean by
affordable
housing they mean 80% of Market rents
I believe it should be 50% of Market
rents 50% of Market rents 50% of all
development has to be affordable housing
compulsory purchase of these by the way
it's at least
200,000 200,000 houses have been bought
by Rich foreigners who never live in
them who have bought them only to lock
up their money away from the police
force in their own country in some cases
we can't accept that so if you don't
live in the house don't buy if you're
not going to live in it don't buy one if
you do buy one and you don't live in it
we're going to compulsory purchase it
that's my plan
inela building
what are you going to do about all these
things well I don't know if the
implication of your question is that I
have anything to do with the qataris I'm
not even allowed to go to Qatar I'm
banned from Qatar I'm banned from
Qatar but they but but they're not but
but they're not banned they're not
banned from London and nobody is banned
from
London anybody can come to London and
anybody can invest in London but if the
ceries or anybody else want to build
housing developments then 50% of the
units will have to be affordable housing
there'll be no special deal for the
royal family of cutter none at
all uh George again I know You' you've
touched a lot on on taxi drivers and I
know it's something that's very close to
your heart but quite a few questions
have touched on that so if there's
anything else you'd like to add because
you've got quite a touching question
here from a mother who spent studied
four years for knowledge and obviously
who's who's very scared of what's going
to happen next so yeah I mean actually I
think the London cabs are crucial to
London I think a London without cabs is
like the Tower of London without
Ravens I believe that London has a stamp
has a brand and the black cabs are part
of that brand I have never found a black
cab driver without something to
say I spent seven years on talk sport
radio every Friday and Saturday night
and practically every London cab driver
listened to my show even if they hated
me and some of them did even if it
infuriated them
and my daughter who was then very young
now the mother of
four said to me once Dy cab drivers are
very clever men I think she meant they
had a lot to
say and historically of course they have
and do and I think that having getting
into a
car
knowing that the person driving it has
had their vehicle checked a vehicle that
must be up to
standard a driver who must be of good
character is really really important
it's really really
important espe I
mean I wouldn't want my wife or my
daughter to get into a car where none of
those things were
guaranteed I really wouldn't and I think
that we have a
responsibility to make sure that at
least least the cab drivers are on a
Level Playing Field with the Uber
drivers well Uber Uber r i mean Uber
were very
clever they hired richel
wetstone the former head of public
relations for
Google and while I'm on that
subject tax dodging corporations in
London will find it very difficult to
deal with me very very difficult to deal
with
me we might have to look at how much
they're paying to get their waste
removed they might have to look at how
much waste they're producing and where
it
goes they might find that collecting
their garbage becomes very very
expensive indeed unless they start
paying tax unless they start
exercising their social
responsibility but back to Rachel
wetstone and
Google Now who's she first of all in our
own right she's a leading member of the
conservative
party she's married to David Cameron's
former longtime head of communications
and a key Cameron campaigner Boris
Johnson said that Cameron told them to
leave Uber
alone and he did leave Uber alone well
David ceron will never tell me what to
do if he tells me to leave somay alone
I'm more likely to pay them a very great
deal of attention indeed
so I'm not I'm not suggesting personal
corruption here Heaven
forfend that Cameron would ever be
involved in anything like like that they
love Uber as I say because it's the kind
of capitalism they believe in they don't
believe in red tape they don't believe
in regulation they don't believe in
health and
safety we had to
fight the
Tories I was one of those doing the
fighting to get a corporate manslaughter
Bill through Parliament that would allow
the prosecution of company directors for
negligence in their companies that led
to public harm the Tories don't believe
in all of that they just don't believe
in it so Uber is the way they would like
the whole economy to be we're nobody is
anybody's brother or sister everybody is
everybody's competitor throat cutting no
rules bear fisted no Marquis of Queen
Queensbury no ring no ban on the feet
the elbow or anything else that's what
they believe
in this of well this is a key point that
I'm glad you've reminded me of you see
heckling can be a very good
thing somebody said earlier well Uber
are
cheaper of course they're cheaper this
is a $40
billion US
Corporation it's a lost leader for them
what's the 40 billion for it's to drive
out the competition and get a monopoly
and once they've got a monopoly see how
cheap it will be then once there's
nobody
else to compete with them that's why the
cab companies who were mortal enemies
for decades to the black cabs have now
joined forces with the black cabs to
reject this throat cutting model
that Uber represents did I deal with
that question yeah thank you very
much um well I think that's just I'll
tell I'll I'll take a question from the
floor you
gentlemen oh my
goodness how would you make for a coun
to
cover
well when a man at your campaign launch
opens his contribution by saying I've
been arrested many times by the
anti-terrorism
[Music]
police you got a bit
nervous and then I recognized you you
are one
of the celebrated
victims of the abuse of police power in
in pic look him up and I helped you in
your hour of
need there you go I'm often the only one
I'm often the only
one I'm not against the
police I must
say in my life in London which is almost
35
years my experience with the
Metropolitan Police has been invariable
with only one exception when a senior
official of the anti-terrorism squad was
sleeping in my bed without my knowledge
but that's another
story that's another
story but my experience with the police
in London has been invariably good but
then I was a well-known white man with
blue eyes I am acutely aware that not
everybody has had that experience with
the Metropolitan
Police but I'm not against the police
because it's working people and poor
people who need police the
most most of the
crime whether violence or theft or
robbery burglary car theft every crime
you can
imagine most of By definition most of
the people who are suffering it are
workingclass people
so I'll back the
police as long as they treat every
Londoner the same that's the key point
and I'll want to know what are the
police response times in Mayfair
compared to the police response times on
the Walworth
Road and if they're not comparable I
want to know why and the commissioner if
he's listening I'm sure there's a police
officer here in the meeting
I saw one or two characters at the back
that I thought might
be police officers so I'm sure you'll
get a
report I'm not
here to make trouble for
you but I am here to make sure that you
serve all londoners and all areas of
London equally that's the pledge that I
am
making I'm going to be asking difficult
questions I'm going to be asking
how come in a city like London where 53%
of the
people
are not
white or are
from other visible
minorities how come so few of the police
officers
are how come those that are at the top
of the tree in the police force look so
unlike the population of London now I
don't mean by that that a white police
officer is inherently in any sense
weaker or less just uh than a black
police officer there some Rogues have
been black police officers as you know
and some
gems are white police
officers but if a police
force Bears no resemblance to the
community it's police
leasing that's asking for trouble and
I'm sure that the commissioner would
agree with me on that he would no doubt
say that he's trying well he needs to
try
harder and now if he wants I'll leader
recruitment
drive for black and minority ethnic
police officers to join the force but if
they do we've got to be sure that they
won't suffer from from that
institutionalized racism that the
mcferson report told us was present in
the metropolitan
police great this question actually is
for Max so max what experience will you
bring to the handling of the London
budget when you come
aboard well I've been in the industry
Finance industry for 30 years I started
out on Wall Street
I uh created a company in Los Angeles
where I invented
technology including the only patented
uh technology for virtual
currencies prediction
markets I of course have been active in
the media space covering Financial
Shenanigans but I guess the uh the key
part of my experience would be that uh I
guess I'm a um uh a poacher turned
gamekeeper in that uh my experience on
Wall Street where I firsthand engaged in
so many of
the U skull dugery that we still see
active today so I'm able to identify
these crimes pretty easily and um
communicate to those who need to be
informed of exactly what's going on and
how best to eradicate in a way that's
either
involving um counter measures in the
financial markets to neutralize the
abuse and the malfeasance or to make a
criminal referral to the appropriate
organization uh and to write that up
according to the specifics of the crime
being done what the problem is today is
that so often it's particularly in the
media space um there's not really enough
literacy a financial literacy
even to I was amazed uh I saw someone
tweeting on this this could have been
just
a but what I understood to have happened
on the BBC Question Time recently is
that David dimbleby asked quote what is
fractional Reserve banking as part of a
a question and answer which to me is
shocking that would be like Mary Barry
saying what is an apple pie you know it
it's it's so fundamentally basic to how
the system works that to have someone of
that stature admit that they don't have
no idea how it works and what goes on is
I think emblematic of the big problem
here is that in the media space you have
Financial illiteracy even in the
political space you have Financial
illiteracy Mark Carney governor of the
bank of England says things that are
shockingly
incorrect uh in it relates to his
description of things like deflation
and inflation he uses these terms in a
way that anyone who's had any training
at all in economics and finance find
laughably appalling and misinformed but
he has a political agenda and the media
in this country follows suit because
they also have a political agenda I do
not think of the BBC as
impartial uh
yeah in in my experience doing
televisions for networks all over the
world I would say that the BBC is
probably the least impartial news
organization in the
world um and and and the country is
suffering as a result of it now with
George Galloway running for mayor and
becoming mayor of London and putting
something like this at the Forefront of
his campaign we're going to really turn
up the heat on those in the city of
London who are continuing to commit acts
of financial fraud
malfeasant and and showcasing this in a
way that people hopefully will get
through that barrier of financial
illiteracy and bring it down to Common
Sense my
basic description of what's happening in
the city of London with the big four
Banks and the big four accountancy firms
KPMG young K price waterhous Cooper and
um uh there's a fourth
deoy what goes on between those four
consultants and those four big Banks is
nothing short of racketeering it's
organized crime it's it's a it's a
racket it needs to be prosecuted as a
racket this is one of the problems that
you have is that cases are prosecuted
one at a time and just like in America
we had this Sim similar with organized
crime it wasn't until it was finally the
the FBI and these other law agencies
figured out that they needed to go after
it as a racket under Rico uh is the what
they call in the US this is the approach
that needs to be taken they need to be
all gone after as an organized crime
Racket and I think that's where we'll
make some Headway and the results will
be startling you'll
see you you know it'll be a boost boost
to the non financialized economy the
financialized
economy is dominates the overall economy
in an extraordinarily unhealthy way the
only thing in nature that grows as
quickly as the financial sector in this
country is
cancer and that's not something you want
in any
economy that needs that growth rate of
financialization privatization
securitization and fraud needs to be
eradicated I think you
agre can I add something yeah of course
um Iceland through the bankers in jail
and Iceland this week became the first
country in the world to reach figures of
output higher than they were before the
crash but nobody has gone to jail
in the city of London even when the
Banks two weeks ago were
fined 7 billion
do7
billion for
fraud nobody no person was
charged now can you imagine a
theft of 700 7,000
nobody personally gets punished for it
but that's what happened with those that
were rigging markets for personal gain
just a couple of weeks ago I talked
about the corporate manslaughter bill
that I was deeply involved in a phrase I
coined at the time was this not until
the first company director goes to jail
for the negligence of their company will
you force companies to make sure there's
no negligence and I believe the same
thing about the finance
[Applause]
sector I believe the gentleman at the
back wants to say something hang on a
second
sorry thank you thank you very much um
George Galloway uh comrades friends uh
pleased to be here uh today my name is
councelor Ol Raman I was the first uh
respect counselor uh in the country and
he said
it's an honor it's an honor and a
privilege to come and support somebody
who's given me given birth uh to me in
politics and because of this man I am
standing here today and I am who I am uh
today so I salute you sir for your
courage and for your support and that
you have given and he when he was Member
of Parliament for Bethel green and bow
because of George we had first
Bangladeshi Member of Parliament in the
country but unfortunately we had the
wrong Bangladeshi member of and in his
own words we had the wrong uh
Bangladeshi Member of Parliament in uh
Beth gbo because she's nothing but the
puppet but one thing I want to ask you
uh George that I'm sure you'll get asked
by many people if you become the mayor
of London as you would know from our own
experience in t hamlets you are quite
easily isolated by The Establishment and
right-wing media
in this uh country how would you tackle
the right-wing media and the aggression
that you're going to face from them and
also throughout London all the London
barers will be either labor or
conservative and how would you tackle
those local authorities to make sure
that they listen to you as mayor of
London and work with you thank you very
much uh councelor o Rahman was the very
first ever respect councelor elected in
Britain uh he became the deputy
mayor uh of tower hamlets I'm very proud
of him I regard him as my
son uh I didn't see you o in the in the
crowd forgive me for that um but the
point that you make is a powerful one
and the only answer to the
destabilization subversion
of the ruling Elite and its media Echo
Chambers is
democracy
and councelor rabina last
Thursday
despite months months of unremitting
smear and
slander came within 14400 votes of being
the leading candidate in the first
ballot for mayor and I think that the
people of tar hamlets will come to
realize and quite quickly that the
person they did elect by a narrow
majority will not do anything for them
will not achieve the things that you
achieved the only borrow paying EMA
education maintenance allowance the only
borrow refusing acmis and free school
and supporting the public school system
and all the other things that you
achieved will come to be looked on as a
golden
age I will try if I'm elected mayor
through a system of town meetings Town
Hall meetings opening the city hall
bringing in the people to build such a
mass base for the meraly and what we're
doing
that no judge or Queen's Council or
newspaper editor will dream that they
can bring it down but if
they if they bring it down our muraly
will be looked back on as a golden age
also politics is a struggle and I've
been struggling in politics for 40 years
more than 40 years I fought my first
election in
1964 our house
was dark because every window was
covered by big posters of Harold Wilson
somebody asked me actually tonight Who's
Harold
Wilson I must be becoming a
veteran let's go with labor was
Harold's slogan the white hot heat of
the technological
Revolution that's how far back in
politics I go and every inch has been a
struggle I defeated Roy Jenkins one of
the biggest figures in post-war British
H politics to take his seat from him in
1987 in Glasgow hillhead you can't
actually fight more of an establishment
figure than the late Roy Jenkins but I
fought him and I
won and I with your
help two on in Beth greenan b one of
the most celebrated Blair
babes it's not my phrase their phrase
Blair babes una King now baroness King
the one thing is when you get defeated
by me you automatically go to the House
of
Lords
so perhaps the labor and conservative
and liberal Democrats that will take
note uh every inch has been a struggle
when I won the Bradford West byelection
3 years ago it was one of the biggest
political upsets perhaps the biggest
political upset in a century of British
politics I have a long track record of
taking the fight to those who oppress us
those who exploit us and I'm proud of
what I have achieved but there would be
no greater
achievement than to win this and build a
people's London a London for all that
would be looked back on by succeeding
Generations as a really fine thing that
London achieved
[Applause]