IT is being billed as the “grumble rumble”, a heavyweight contest in New York between two British socialists, one a hawk and the other a dove, bitterly divided over the war in Iraq.

They go head to head in a debate on Wednesday that much of America is talking about.

In the blue corner is Christopher Hitchens, 56, a long-time Washington resident, polemicist, author and a champion of the war. In the red corner is George Galloway, 51, leader of the Respect party, elected as MP for Bethnal Green and Bow at the general election in May on an anti-war ticket.

The two last sparred on Washington’s Constitution Avenue two weeks after the election when Galloway arrived to testify before a Senate sub-committee looking into the UN oil-for-food programme.

Galloway was holding forth to the assembled media before Hitchens interjected and asked him about his alleged endorsement of Saddam Hussein’s payment for suicide bombers in Israel and the occupied territories. The MP changed tone and said this was what he would expect from a “drink-sodden ex-Trotskyist popinjay”.

He added: “Your hands are shaking. You badly need another drink.” Hitchens, seemingly bested, walked off saying: “You’re a real thug, aren’t you?”

The rematch this week is less street brawl, more presidential-style debate. Both men will stand at podiums at the Baruch College performing arts centre and debate the rights and wrongs of the war in Iraq.

The 1,500 seats, which cost £6.50 each, sold out weeks ago. There are calls to run it on the internet.

Armavirumque, weblogger for the American right-wing New Criterion magazine, said last week: “I thought the UK deported Galloway back to Egypt with the rest of the clerics. This is one cage match I surely plan to see.”

Fujiyama, a frequent contributor to the Democratic Underground discussion forums, said: “I may have my differences with Galloway but I’d love to see him smack down Hitchens.”

Hitchens will need to raise his game to avoid a second pasting. Writing in one American weekly, he stole Galloway’s insult, calling him “a little popinjay who defends dictatorship abroad and who trades on religious sectarianism at home”.

But he added that he was heartened by the fact that just four years ago Galloway called him “the greatest polemicist of our age” in an article in a communist newspaper.

He said he was unharmed by Galloway’s insults. “It takes a little more than this to wound your correspondent,” he said. “I could still hold a martini without spilling it when I was the greatest polemicist of our age.”

What’s his verdict on Galloway? “Prolier than thou, and ostentatiously radical, but a bit too fond of the cigars and limos and always looking a bit odd in a suit that was slightly too expensive . . . what the English call a wide boy.”

Galloway, on tour in America to promote his book Mr Galloway Goes to Washington, said last week: “If he’s sober I think it should be a reasonable championship bout but I am pretty confident of winning.

“I told them they should have picked a bigger hall because I have got people ringing from all over.

“I expect him to come at me with a blundering Sonny Liston-type approach but I see myself as Muhammad Ali in this contest. I will float like a butterfly and sting like a bee. He is far too heavy these days to float like a butterfly.”

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