The Ballad of George Galloway’s Campaign Bus

The shortest stories are often the sweetest, and so I'll let this one play out at its own speed, in its own words, with its own illustrations. There is no sprinkle of gold dust I can add onto this: no cherry to perch atop the ice cream. These two tweets, spaced just over 24 hours apart, tell everything that needs to be told themselves. To borrow an overused conceit: this is the Citizen Kane of tweets about George Galloway's bus windows getting fucked in by a brick.

Urgently need a bus driver £15 per hour. George@galloway2016.london — George Galloway (@georgegalloway)April 5, 2016

But the show must go on — George Galloway (@georgegalloway)April 6, 2016

Recap: George Galloway needed a bus driver, urgently. His other bus driver took ill. He offered £15 an hour. It is not yet known if he managed to recruit a bus driver in this way. It is not yet known how many people with valid bus licenses sit around on Twitter during the day trying to find work. Anyway: scene deleted. Twenty four hours pass. Someone decks George Galloway's bus windows in with a brick or similar. He posts a photo to Twitter that shows a busted window in front of a highly visible stock of shortbread fingers. The bus is packed with shortbread fingers. Nobody took the shortbread fingers, so we can only assume the vandalism was targeted, rather than a petty theft (if you're going to break into a bus, and you don't steal the shortbread fingers, then why break into a bus? Why risk busting your hand up, if you're not going to get away with the sweet, crumbly, Galloway-approved snack treats? It defies sense). The police arrive on the scene. Day 2 of George Galloway not riding a bus with his own face on it around London. And: scene. The truth has been silenced. The truth – painted large and blue on the side of a for hire bus – has been silenced. Where's the justice?

Reader, let's find it together:

THREE EXTREMELY BELIEVABLE THEORIES ABOUT WHAT OR WHO HAPPENED TO GEORGE GALLOWAY'S CAMPAIGN BUS, WHICH I AM GOING TO GO AHEAD AND ASSUME GALLOWAY AFFECTIONATELY REFERS TO AS 'BUSSY'

i. The Mossad. He got fucked in by the Mossad;

ii. Some '''''''''''''jokers''''''''''''' – and there is no joking around when it comes to the mayoral elections, do not be deterred by the cat man's hat, do not think he is here for jokes, this man who licked theoretical cream while wearing a leotard on live TV once – which, when you parse it, when you really think about it, is literally the most indignified moment in human history, like George Galloway could have gained some decorum out of that moment by viciously shitting himself – do not mistake him for an unserious man. Like yes: he might sit on a bus with his own face on it all day, furiously eating shortbread. But he's also fucking serious about housing. And then some fuckers decked his windows in, the venomous little cunts;

iii. Now, I'm not saying George Galloway's campaign bus is cursed per se – that a witch or similar stirred from the simple wooden shack she lives in, deep in Epping Forest, and burned herbs and sacrificed lambs and called upon the old gods and the elfen spirits and said to them, howled into the void, "Old gods," the witch said, "Elfen spirits: fuck up George Galloway's campaign bus, two days in a row, so he can't drive it anymore!" – but I am saying it is a possibility;

iv. I don't know, some lads saw a bus with George Galloway's face on it and did it for a banter;

It's sad because in many ways, Galloway is the closest we're getting in the UK to a Trump-like figure: bombastic, wears unusual things on his head, is kind of that perfect caricature of a politician, an alive joke, the kind you only see in disaster movie compilations, like the asteroid is careening towards the earth and has torn a hole in the solar system and many green-tentacled aliens are leaking through, and in the minutes before the superhero saves the day with laser vision we – the doomed scum – we crowd in bars and diner cafés staring quietly at the TVs, the TVs blaring a screaming announcement from President Trump and High Emperor Galloway, fedora trembling, wig ablaze, and they both go, "We shall not be cowed by the alien scum! We must stay strong and united!", and both are eventually beheaded by said alien scum – the lead alien is charismatically played by Eddie Redmayne, sort of cheeky and dreadful and androgynous at once, and who tears Emperor Galloway's head from his neck tendons in one snap movement before the superhero – I'm imaging a squad, actually, a team, like perhaps another Fantastic Four reboot – before the superhero squad stab him to death with ancient cursed spears. But still Galloway's head rolls croaking on the floor. And with one final whisper he manages to hiss: "Mosssssssaaaaaadddd."

But no, the Trump–Galloway axis of evil will not come to fruition, and alien Eddie Redmayne will not murder him in front of us all on live TV, and that is because the Mossad (or a witch!) fucked his bus. And that's the true shame of democracy: that Zac Goldsmith and Sadiq Khan, with all their flashy policies and big money suits and bus drivers, with their weighty political party backing, those are the ones we see, on the TV and in our newspapers, those are the ones who are visible. And what is George Galloway known for? For looking a little bit like someone who fell asleep as a toddler and woke up again now as a 61-year-old man, baffled to be wearing a beard and hat and running for Mayor of London; for licking invisible cream out of Rula Lenska's hands that one time; for having a fucked bus. Where's the democracy in that? Where's the fairness in that? The fairness is shattered to a thousand pieces and crumbled under George Galloway's Respect bus. Politics is dead.

@joelgolby

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