Galloway’s just out for himself

■ Keir Starmer says he’ll carry on with his hobby of playing football even if he wins the next general election, but he has really scored an own goal by not fielding a suitable Labour candidate in last week’s Rochdale by-election.

This allowed the egotistical, selfserving chancer George Galloway to win by a landslide and steal Labour’s thunder. It’s likely to start a rumbling of discontent amongst voters who have yet to be convinced.

The time has never been more ripe for a Labour victory at the polls but mistakes like this can soon change the minds of a fickle electorate. There needs to be a record turnout in future polls to defeat this Tory Government forever.

Neil Atherton, St Helens Merseyside

■ Let’s hope George Galloway remembers he has been elected to represent the people of Rochdale and not Gaza. While entitled to support whatever he wants, his first priority should be to Rochdale. My mum was born there and her father was a policeman in Rochdale. Both would be turning in their graves at this result but that’s democracy – something which Gaza doesn’t have.

Hate breeds more hate. It’s my belief that if Hamas were allowed to roam free they would slaughter Israelis at will. Where are the great statesmen like Henry Kissinger to sort out the Middle East? Sadly, there aren’t any.

Guy Middlewood, York

■ George Galloway is a deluded hard-left bigot who in 2019 called on voters to back Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party. He doesn’t speak for the working class at all and deserved to be expelled from the Labour Party. He only represents himself by causing trouble with anyone who disagrees with him.

This total idiot, who once praised Putin as “the most popular politician on the planet”, is an absolute disgrace to British politics. He is the British left-wing equivalent of Donald Trump.

Steve Goulding, Sheffield

■ Galloway will destroy himself as he always does and without Putin’s Russia Today to use as a platform he will find it harder to spout his anti-Labour divisive claptrap.

No doubt the Tory media will give him airtime because they know he will denounce Labour, but they should be careful as he’s already stirring up trouble.

Michael Elias, Carmarthen

■ Israel was declared a nation after the British left in 1948 and the Palestinians have protested ever since. October 7 marked a new low in relations between Israel and their neighbours and now Netanyahu has made this bad situation even worse with his mass killings.

Neither the Government, the Labour Party nor anyone else can solve this problem. It will continue until the last person is standing.

Terry Marriott, Waterlooville Hants

■ From the moment Labour withdrew their support for their candidate in the Rochdale by-election it presented, to use a football analogy, an open goal for George Galloway to gleefully put away.

If the Labour Party can’t hold a safe seat like Rochdale – which they won at the last election with a majority of just under 10,000 – then Keir Starmer’s position is untenable.

Paul Lawlor, Gloucester

■ When I think of George Galloway, all that comes to mind is his toecurling performance in Celebrity Big Brother pretending to lap milk from Rula Lenska’s hands. The man is a joke and won’t do anything for the people of Rochdale.

Tony Jackson, South Shields Tyne and Wear