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George Galloway is in the news. Again. The weekend revelation that he met Ed Miliband to discuss boundary changes led to a hasty denial from the Labour leader’s HQ that the possibility of Mr Galloway rejoining the party would ever be contemplated.

“Ed Miliband asked for the meeting and I happily met him,” says the Respect MP. Which rather puts Mr Miliband in his place. “It was the first time I ever met him. It’s remarkable that you can become leader of the Labour Party when you’ve been elected in 2005.”

Mr Miliband will, no doubt, be glad to hear he is a fan. “I thought he was quite impressive, physically and intellectually. I respected his father [Marxist academic Ralph] very much,” says Mr Galloway, now MP for Bradford West. There was nothing about reconciliation with Labour, which expelled him for his stance on the Iraq war. “He said we should do this again.” He pauses. “Possibly now we never shall.”

The meeting took place several months ago, he says, but has only now been leaked: he puts it down to a “full-scale Blairite attempt to destabilise Ed Miliband”, whom he regards as having a “higher moral character” than former Labour leaders — naming no names, but if you’re guessing Tony Blair, you’re there. “I want to see Ed Miliband as prime minister and the sooner the better,” says Mr Galloway. He is encouraging his supporters to vote Labour where there is no Respect candidate.

In fact, he has not given up any hope of rejoining Labour: “I have always said that I love the Labour Party a lot more than those who led it.” Mr Galloway’s own sort of Keynesianism — as an alternative to quantitative easing he would give each pensioner £100 to spend, to stimulate growth — seems pretty much in the party’s remit. “If Labour became Labour again,” the MP says, “everyone on the Left, including me, would have to reconsider their attitude.”

He has what he calls a triptych of preconditions: scrapping Trident; stopping Britain’s involvement in wars and bringing home troops; and pursuing tax evaders and avoiders as aggressively as welfare cheats. That sounds like a

Lib-Dem dream list. “I’m too socially conservative for the Lib-Dems”, he says cheerfully, “but Vince Cable’s instincts on the economy are better than Ed Balls’s. Ed Balls is the City’s man.”

Has he converted to Islam? “I believe in God and try to act according to the law of God.” So…? “You should be glad there’s someone in public life who is a believer. I think that’s more important than specificity.” He stands by a response he once gave to a Spectator poll, in which he says he believes Jesus rose from the dead.

But if he is Muslim, he’s against militant Islamism. When he heard of the Chechen link with the Boston bombers “I may have been the first in public life on the Left to see it as another example of Islamic fanatic terrorism”, though he adds pointedly, “of the kind we’re supporting in Syria.”