Essentially, Galloway is froth, a transitory phenomenon. The scale of his electoral success in the recent election probably owes much to the unusally high percentage of muslims reputedly among his new constituents and the undeniable fact that he is evidently an unusually potent symbolic irritant to Blair and the Blairites.

Only now, as the direct result of this election, is Blair starting to appreciate that: (1) others may possess “charisma” besides himself, and (2) while some regard charisma as a positive quality, others consider it a decidedly negative factor in Parliamentary systems of government, (3) not everyone regards a talent for duping others to be an admirable personal skill.

As for Galloway’s trips to meet Saddam in Iraq, these have probably been less significant in their import than this piture of Donald Rumsfeld, the present US secretary of defense, meeting Saddam in 1983:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/

Galloway has been an immensely convenient symbol for those who wish to smear and discredit critics and criticism of the Iraq war. It happens, I have been among the critics of the Iraq war from start to finish for reasons I have argued many times at length online but I have never cared to associate with any platform that Galloway might occur.

Let me refresh my memory. Galloway, that would be The Labour party whip who , correctly as it turns out, denounced Tony Blair for his lies about the war, before the war. Who got booted out of Labour for it.

And then at the height of the war, we got reports about “Secret documents” which puportedly showed him to to be in Saddam Hussein’s pay….since found to be forgeries, and Galloway has since won retractions and a libel case against the Sunday Telegraph.

His seat then got redistricted, so that he’d be running against one of Blair’s Close allies holding what seems to be a safe seat, who during her campaign made seemingly unfounded sexual allegations about him, that she then had to retract.

His wife announces that she is leaving him on the eve of elections, possibly in conjunction with the above.

And he still wins. As a fourth-party candidate.

oh, uhm, handy rhetorical club for what exactly again ?

By reports, Blair is uncomfortable with the prospect of acting as PM with the much reduced majority and the likelihood of having to cope with proportionately far more rebellious Labour MPs who believe in notions of rather more collegiate ways in government.