George’s big problem, as he might admit in the lonely watches of the night, is located just below the pepper-and-salt moustache of which he is so proud. Paradoxically, it is the location of his greatest asset as a politician. Nobody, not even his most fervent admirers, could disagree that George Galloway has a big mouth.

Consider the trouble it has caused him over the years. There was the occasion, returning from a conference in Greece, when he offered up the information that some of the women delegates were "known carnally" to him. "Reticence might have been a good idea," he now admits. "It was a case of wishing one had chosen other words.

I mean, carnal knowledge! Why these archaic English words leap into my mind, I wish I knew."

There was the time when, as a young left-wing firebrand in his native city of Dundee, he persuaded the council that the city should be twinned with the Palestinian town of Nablus, on the Israeli-occupied West Bank. In consequence, the outraged citizens discovered a Palestinian flag fluttering above their town hall. "If you think some of the controversies I am in now are hot," he says, "believe me, you should have been there. It was unbelievable – even looking back on it makes me shudder. It was not pleasant at all."

There was, of course, the infamous grovelling address to Saddam Hussein. "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability..."

In vain did he try to explain he was attempting to address the Iraqi people rather than their oppressor. "Do I regret it? Sure. Only a fool has no regrets. I should have rephrased it. But I don’t think I was damaged by it politically. I’ve been elected to parliament three times since then."

Then he got himself expelled from the Labour party in 2003 for likening Tony Blair and George Bush to wolves in their determination to attack Iraq, and suggesting that "the best thing British troops can do is to refuse to obey illegal orders". Although he blustered about a "show trial" and a "kangaroo court", he was devastated to be thrown out of the party. "I fought very hard to stay. I really loved the Labour party, its history, its language, its iconography. I had spent all my life in it and really hated being kicked out by these people who were destroying the party. If you have ever been in a marriage that went through a rocky patch, you’ll know how I felt."

Immediately after the July 7 suicide bombings in London, Galloway was the only politician to voice what many people feared: that the capital was "paying the price" of government policies in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Ten thousand Osama Bin Ladens have been created," he said in the House, "by the events of the last two years." There was predictable fury on all sides, with the shadow defence minister, Adam Ingram, an old nemesis, accusing Galloway of "dipping his poisonous tongue in a pool of blood". The next day, the tabloid press condemned him as a "vile traitor". Earlier this month, Galloway popped up again on a range of Arab TV stations, describing Israeli and coalition armies as being responsible for the "rape" of "two beautiful Arab daughters": Jerusalem and Baghdad.

Galloway denies courting controversy.

"It would be infinitely more pleasurable if everything one said fell like a rose petal from one’s lips and was universally admired. You would have to be a masochist to want to be in the centre of a storm. On the other hand, I have never forsworn from saying what I think had to be said for fear of controversy."

We are talking in Galloway’s bleak little rented apartment just off Brick Lane, in the heart of his Bethnal Green and Bow constituency. There are few home comforts and almost no sign of human occupancy, apart from the unmade bed and the overflowing laundry basket and ashtrays. He admits he is "not in the best shape domestically" and is embarrassed that he cannot offer me tea or coffee, as his fridge is literally empty. The flat is just a place where he sleeps, he explains, although since the election in May he has been travelling around the country so much, he doubts if he has spent two consecutive nights in the same bed.

Whom he might share that bed with is the one area of his life he is not prepared to discuss, "particularly not with The Sunday Times".

(The Sunday Times revealed, shortly before the election, and apparently to his surprise, that his wife, Dr Amineh Abu-Zayyad, a Palestinian-born biologist, was planning to divorce him because of her suspicions that he was serially unfaithful. He angrily alleged that the story was politically motivated and designed to damage his electoral chances.) Right now, he says, he has "absolutely no social life". Every waking moment not taken up with constituency work is spent promoting Respect, his new political party. But it is taking a toll on what remains of his family life. On the previous day, he had arranged to spend a leisurely afternoon with his married daughter, Lucy, and his two grandchildren, Sean, 3, and baby Lola. In the event, he had so many people to see he could only spend a brief and strained two hours with them. He tried to tell Lucy that this was an exceptional period, that in politics when things are going well it is like a wave you have to surf. But she just said: "You could end up saying that for the rest of your life." She has not telephoned him today, as she normally would. "They went away not very happy with me, and it is preying on my mind," he says. "It is horrible to disappoint your children."