Galloway: "Standing up for the politics I believe in"

Respect has launched its election campaign with an attack on Labour's economic record.

Former Labour MP George Galloway's party accused ministers of allowing MG Rover to collapse and Tesco to make £2bn profits.

The flamboyant Scot criticised the chancellor's three cuts in corporation tax, taking it to a level lower than under Margaret Thatcher.

He also called on the government to take action to keep the ailing Midlands manufacturer Rover alive, with state subsidies along the lines of France and Italy's support for Citroen and Fiat.

However, he admitted that he personally drives a Mercedes "because there is no Rover equivalent for the tasks my Mercedes has to perform - I wish there was".

And he acknowledged to ePolitix.com that he may have voted for the cuts in business taxes that he now derides, despite his reputation as a rebel.

"I'm not sure that when I was in the Labour Party under a three-line whip, trying to fight my corner in the Labour Party, I was not whipped into supporting the Finance Bill," Galloway told this website.

"I'm certainly not supporting it now. Because I am free, free amongst my friends to stand up for the politics I believe in. That I have always believed in."

Iraq

Galloway - who represented the now defunct Glasgow Kelvin constituency as an independent after his expulsion from Labour - has been an outspoken critic of the government's alliance with America over Iraq.

Having been kicked out of Labour, he helped establish Respect with other members of the anti-war movement and stood as its lead candidate in the European elections in London last year.

Although he failed to win election then, the party did well in parts of the capital with large Muslim populations, including the Bethnal Green and Bow constituency, where he is now standing against Labour's Oona King.

At the launch he said he likened government "spin" over Iraq to Hitler's propaganda and argued that the "war is not over".

"If you don't punish Tony Blair for Iraq why shouldn't it be Syria, Iran, Cuba, North Korea next - or somewhere else on the ever-lengthening axis of evil drawn up by fevered imaginations in Washington?" he asked.