Respect ousts Bradford Labour boss (From The Oxford Times)

Respect ousts Bradford Labour boss

5:50am Friday 4th May 2012 in National News © Press Association 2013

George Galloway's Respect Party has followed up its shock by-election victory by winning five seats on Bradford Council, including that of the Labour leader.

Councillor Ian Greenwood lost his Little Horton seat after three recounts to Respect's Alyas Karmani.

Mr Galloway, who upset Labour by winning the Bradford West parliamentary seat in a March by-election, was absent for the count, which saw his party successful in five out of the 12 wards it contested.

Speaking at his campaign HQ, Mr Galloway said: "By anyone's calculation it's been a fantastic night for Respect.

"We took seats off all three of the mainstream parties.

"We took seats in Bradford West, my constituency, but also outside of Bradford West.

"And we took the head off the rotten fish that is the Bradford City Council.

"We defeated a council leader who sat there, apparently impregnable and utterly complacent, for a decade and a half or more."

He said Respect offered voters a "viable alternative to the tweedledee, tweedledum, tweedledee-and-a-half politics that the three mainstream leaderships are offering them".

Mr Galloway said: "I think that the Labour Party in Bradford will be taken into special measures by the Labour national headquarters."