Politician known for firebrand speeches has overturned huge parliamentary majorities and survived scandals
George Galloway's return to parliamentary life after his Bradford West win is just the latest notable moment in a very long career. Known for his flamboyant verbal attacks and overturning even the largest electoral majorities of his opponents, he has taken in everything from US senate committee hearings to feline frolics in Celebrity Big Brother.
Born in 1954 in "an attic in a slum tenement in the Irish quarter of Dundee", Galloway was appointed a Labour party organiser after a stint working for Michelin tyres.
He soon became known for his firebrand speeches and at 26 he became chairman of the Scottish Labour party, one of the youngest in its history.
In 1987 Galloway won the Glasgow Hillhead seat – ousting an unpopular Roy Jenkins who, as one of the gang of four, had helped form the new Social Democratic party. He faced an almost immediate scandal when he was asked about a conference in Mykonos in Greece and replied: "I travelled and spent lots of time with people in Greece, many of whom were women, some of whom were known carnally to me. I actually had sexual intercourse with some of the people in Greece."
That earned him the sobriquet "Gorgeous George" but also disapproval from some of his local party members. He only narrowly survived a vote of no confidence to win re-selection for the seat the following year.
Just a few years after the first Gulf war, Galloway caused outrage when he was filmed telling Saddam Hussein: "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability." He claimed that the praise was intended for the Iraqi people collectively.
In 1998 he founded the Mariam Appeal to campaign against sanctions on Iraq. It was named after a child, Mariam Hamza, flown to Britain to be treated for leukaemia.
The fund was subject to scrutiny in 2003 but the Charity Commission in its first investigation rejected allegations that funds had been misused and the Daily Telegraph, which published the allegations, awarded him £150,000 in damages. A subsequent investigation by the Charity Commission in 2007 found that the appeal had received at least £230,000 in improper donations.
In a Commons Westminster Hall debate on Iraq in 2002, he called the Foreign Office minister Ben Bradshaw a liar after Bradshaw accused him of being a mouthpiece for the Iraqi regime. The sitting was suspended but Bradshaw later withdrew his accusation and Galloway apologised.
He was sacked from the Labour party in 2003 after accusations were levelled against him that he had called on foreign troops to attack UK soldiers in Iraq.
The Labour chairman Ian McCartney at the time said Galloway was being expelled because he had "incited foreign forces to rise up against British troops".
Galloway bounced back to parliamentary life in 2005. He founded the Respect party and retained his place in parliament after winning the former Labour stronghold of Bethnal Green and Bow in London's East End – ousting the parliamentary rising star Oona King, who had supported the Iraq war, in the process. He overturned a seemingly insurmountable majority of 10,000 to win a heated and personal campaign by 823 votes.
Months later a 2005 US senate report investigating his charity found that there was "substantial evidence" that Galloway had personally profited from the sale of 20m barrels of oil between 2000 and early 2003 from Iraq through his Mariam Appeal.
Defending himself, Galloway threw down the gauntlet to the US senate committee, who had drafted the report and flew to the US to accuse senators of manufacturing "the mother of all smokescreens".
"I am here today – but last week you already found me guilty. You traduced my name around the world without ever having asked me a single question, without ever having contacted me, without ever having written to me or telephoned me, without any contact with me whatsoever – and you call that justice," he said.
While on the steps of the US Congress, he even managed to silence the late essayist and debater Christopher Hitchens with one his most memorable put-downs, declaring him to be a "drink-soaked former Trotskyist popinjay".
Appearing in the Celebrity Big Brother house in 2006, Galloway managed to alienate his constituents by pretending to purr and lick cream from the actor Rula Lenska's hands on the show.
He also hosted a phone-in TV programme broadcast on the Iranian international news network Press TV which was criticised in 2010 by the broadcasting watchdog for breaching impartiality rules.
Earlier this year he accepted £25,000 in damages from News Group Newspapers after it admitted that the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire had intercepted messages left on his mobile phone.