George Galloway slams the phone down during explosive interview with Politics UK

George Galloway being interviewed at the by-election count after the result was announced

George Galloway put the phone down during an explosive interview with a journalist from Politics UK after he complained that ‘fake data’ was put to him.

What started out as a routine interview answering a series of questions about his last few months in office as the Rochdale MP, quickly turned sour. Mr Galloway was left angered when Matthew from the political news platform claimed he was estimated to only get less than one per cent of the vote in Rochdale at the general election. 

During the pre-recorded interview posted on social media platform X, Mr Galloway said: “How can you, with a straight face, say that? I have got one per cent of the vote in my office right now. 

“If you were in Rochdale right now, you would see thousands of posters with my name on them in people’s windows. Are you seriously suggesting to me that I only have one per cent of the vote in Rochdale when I got 39 per cent 100 days ago. 

“That is not data, that is fake, fake, fake.”

When asked whether he thought the data was wrong, the leader of the Workers Party added: “You are making yourself look ridiculous, I have got one per cent of the electorate in my headquarters right now.

“You are making yourself look like an idiot right now.”

When the interviewer tried to move on to his general election campaign, the former Labour MP asked who he was and what Politics UK is, before saying ‘I think I’ve wasted enough time with you goodbye’, and hanging up the phone.

The interviewer said that the pollster estimated Labour would get just over 62 per cent of the vote, despite Mr Galloway telling him he pays no attention to polls, but rather the outcome from the voters. Back in February at the Rochdale by-election, Mr Galloway won in a landslide, securing nearly 10,000 more votes than Labour and just under 6,000 more votes than second placed independent candidate David Tully.

The Labour candidate for the by-election, Azhar Ali, had been suspended after he made ‘deeply offensive’ comments about Israel. Before hanging up the phone, Mr Galloway was also questioned as to whether the Labour suspension of Mr Ali was the reason he got such a large amount of votes. 

Before all this, Mr Galloway did answer a few questions which made clear he believed he would be re-elected as the Rochdale MP on 4 July, and claimed that Labour was a ‘dirty word’ in his constituency. This was something he put down to ‘decades of failure from Labour’ in the area.

Mr Galloway is set to be fighting what is expected to be a two-horse race with Labour’s candidate Paul Waugh. Despite what the Politics UK polls suggested, if the previous two elections in 2024 are anything to go by, nothing is definite until the results are announced.

George Lythgoe, Local Democracy Reporter