Yesterday I wrote up the contents of the web site belonging to Chambers Solicitors, the firm of lawyers who act on behalf of George Galloway. Here are some other interesting tidbits about that firm that are worth bearing in mind.
Last July the firm was raided by the West Yorkshire Police and two people were arrested there as reported at the time in Bradford’s local paper, The Telegraph and Argus:
Two people were in custody last night following a police raid at a Bradford solicitors’ office.
They were arrested after police swooped on the business in Grattan Road at about 10am.
West Yorkshire Police have declined to give further details of the investigation, though they say it is an ongoing inquiry into an alleged fraud. The action was orchestrated by the force’s Economic Crime Unit.
Detective Sergeant Gary Ferris said: “This was a pre-planned operation carried out by the Economic Crime Unit in conjunction with Bradford CID and Neighbourhood Policing Teams.”
The UK based legal blog Legal Cheek followed up and asked for comment and got this:
The force today would only say that those two people had been released on police bail. Chambers Solicitors’ senior partner Mohammed Ayub told Legal Cheek this afternoon that he had no comment on the police investigation.
Legal Cheek also seems to be well on top of this story and a good source of real information.
And as if this wasn’t enough bad news for George Galloway, the UK Newspapers are now full of the story of the woman who is to run against him for the Parliamentary seat of Bradford West which Galloway holds at the moment.
The headlines scream that she’s the daughter of a murderer but it’s worth getting past those to understand her story (Daily Telegraph):
A Labour Party candidate has told her extraordinary life story including her mother’s imprisonment for murder and the arranged marriage she was forced into at the age of 15.
Last week, Naz Shah was selected to fight the seat of Bradford West at the forthcoming general election, the town where she grew up in extreme poverty, becoming homeless after her father left her mother for a 16-year-old neighbour when she was six.
She has now told the full story of traumatic childhood, including how she was forced to be a parent to her two sisters after her mother, who had suffered years of abuse at the hands of a local drug dealer, was jailed for his murder.
The Labour candidate for Bradford West @NazShahBfd has such an inspiring story.Look out George http://t.co/XoQwI9Oohk pic.twitter.com/PSnOlhu5RX
— Gordon MacMillan (@gordonmacmillan) March 9, 2015
The full story is in the local Urban Echo paper and they published it on International Womens’ Day. I don’t know a great deal more about this woman, but if she can unseat George Galloway, she’ll be a hero for that reason alone.
Update 13:30: I want to mildly qualify my enthusiasm for Naz Shah above with the following quote from Ben Judah in Table Magazine. He’s writing a huge (and very good so far) exposition on Jew hatred in the UK and in the second part (of five) he has this to say about Bradford and specifically Naz Shah (my emphasis):
Bradford is not much of a place to be a Jew. There are fewer than 300 Jews living in the city and only a handful observant. The city’s one Jewish politician is very quiet about his origins, Orthodox Jews are nervous to walk around in kippot, and even a Jewish funeral has been attacked by marauding Muslim anti-Zionist protesters. Even the candidates bidding to dislodge George Galloway now mimic his pro-Palestinian rhetoric, seeking to outdo each other in their condemnation of Israel. The only party that stands a chance of dislodging him is the Labour Party. I contacted every leading candidate bidding to represent them against George Galloway. Most had websites exhibiting photos of themselves at pro-Palestinian protests. Only two wrote back: One Labor hopeful responded rather bizarrely to my request for an interview on the subject of anti-Semitism with a video and transcript of herself speaking at a pro-Palestinian rally. Another, Naz Shah, a Palestine activist I contacted by Twitter direct message stopped responding when I explained Tablet magazine was a Jewish publication. Shah was finally selected to fight Galloway for Labour from an all-Muslim shortlist. The first candidate selected by Labour withdrew amid accusations Pakistani clan elders were unhappy.