Yes, those nice folks at the Daily Telegraph are going to have to pay Mr George Galloway £150,000 plus, oh, about £1.2 million in costs, for effectively announcing to its readers that:

Mr Galloway ("the MP for Bagdhad Central" [telegraph]) had been in Saddam's pay, secretly receiving about £375,000 a year.

He diverted monies from the oil-for-food programme, thus depriving the Iraqi people of food and medicines.

He probably used the Mariam Appeal, a campaign Mr Galloway launched to raise money for an Iraqi girl with leukaemia, as a front for personal enrichment.

What he had done was tantamount to treason.

The judge found emphatically in his favour and ordered the paper to pay restorative damages, and his costs in full. (Galloway would have been totally ruined otherwise, he tells us).

The judge concluded:
"Allegations of treason are not part and parcel of the knocks one expects to take in the course of everyday political debate,"

the tone of the Telegraph's coverage was "dramatic and condemnatory... it went beyond the documents and drew its own conclusions".


The award made to Mr Galloway was aggravated by some of the treatment meted out to the MP when he was cross-examined in last month's trial by the Telegraph's barrister, James Price QC.

That included a furious exchange in which Mr Price said, incorrectly, that Mr Galloway had mentioned in a fundraising letter that Barbara Amiel, the former Telegraph columnist and the wife of its erstwhile proprietor, Conrad Black, was Jewish.

"One aspect of aggravation was the unfortunate attribution in cross-examination of anti-semitism," the judge said.

The Telegraph's barrister alleged in court that Mr Galloway believed that the paper hated his views on the Middle East because its proprietor's wife was Jewish.

Mr Galloway took exception to this and accused Mr Price of slandering him. The Telegraph's QC withdrew the suggestion.

Mr Justice Eady said: "I am quite prepared to accept that it [the allegation that Mr Galloway was anti-semitic] was a slip, in the heat of the moment, and that it was not intended to be put forward as part of the defendant's case... It was an unfortunate episode and one which, to some extent at least, must have an aggravating effect."

And he has chosen this evening to announce that he will be standing against blairite robot Oona King in the next general election.... this could be interesting.

I have quite a large amount of sympathy for George Galloway and am certainly glad to see the right wing press shelling out some money over their concerted Iraq lies.

BUT, I don't have a lot of time for George Galloway, as some of his over the top comments about Iraq tended to deflect attention from the real arguments that the anti war campaign relied upon.

Just nice to see the Torygraph getting a good bitchslapping in the courts after that campaign of personal vilification.

I know what you mean about Gorgeous George though, apparently he even gave up smoking his usual brand of Monte Cristo No.2s ("they're like torpedos") during the trial as an economy measure.

Telegraph should have issued the apology when they had the chance.

I rather like the idea that newspapers, in the event of issuing apologies and retractions, should be compelled to commit the same number of column inches to the retraction and apology as they did to the offending article(s). This would prevent those piddling little apologies on run of paper somewhere in the sports section.

Yes, I think they might just write off the 150,000 without a second's thought - but actually having to print a front page headline for 5 consecutive days saying something like "We are liars and run campaigns of personal hatred" might make them think again before printing pure unadulterated lies.

Just because the Prime Minister is allowed to get away with it shouldn't mean that everyone should be.

Neil Darbyshire, the executive editor of The Daily Telegraph, said the newspaper was "disappointed by this judgment, which we believe is a blow to the principle of freedom of expression in this country".

I note that the original journalists name was David Blair. Wasn't that journalist fired from the NYT for making up stories also called Blair? What is it with Blairs and lying?! ;)

Be interesting to see if Lib Dems put up a decent fight against Oona King, perhaps she'll come back home to Sheffield and take over from Blunkett when he quits Labour to join Father 4 Justice.

Originally posted by Disco_Cat
Be interesting to see if Lib Dems put up a decent fight against Oona King, perhaps she'll come back home to Sheffield and take over from Blunkett when he quits Labour to join Father 4 Justice.

hahahahahahahaha

indeed.

I can just imagine Blunko on the roof of the city hall demanding rail passes for his lovechildren.

I would like to know what the seldom seen Barclay Brothers think about this, as they actually own Telegraph Group ("Conrad? Yer goin' dahn"). However, journalists turning up at their fortress in the sea are met with decidedly unfriendly armed guards ( I read in this fortnights Eye) - I wonder what they are hiding.

I shall have to go out and have a look at the nearest copy to see if they make any reference to it whatsoever...

Galloway wins libel case against Telegraph (http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1364526,00.html)

"The Telegraph claimed it was in the public interest to publish its story regardless of whether it was true"

:lol:

Telegraph are talking about appealing. If they do I hope that the judge increases the fine.

It was a blatant character assassination by the DT. Apparently they were refused leave to appeal against the verdict but intend to appeal against the level of compensation and award of costs.

Whatever the rights or wrongs of this claim, the film shown on tv of George telling Saddam how much he respected him, and all the other crawling comments, really stuck in my throat, George Galloway, sorry, don't like you fella!!!

well you either accept his explanation for that or you don't.

his version has him telling saddam that he respects the iraqi people. As he says, he should have used the glasgow "youse", rather than the plural "you" (of Standard English)

But yeah, he is bound to polarize opinion for all sorts of reasons, being a fairly 'colourful' character.

Nice to see him getting the Telegraphs QC to retract his statements in court and having the Judge add that defamation under privelege to the damages awarded. I wonder if the QC concerned will have something deducted from his bill for that slip up.

sorry there's just so much good material in this story, it doesn't bear passing up!

At least when Galloway met Saddam he was trying to urge him not to use his chemical weapons rather then attempting to sell him more, unlike a certain American politician also on film paying his respects.

Barclay twins take on this is going to be very interesting, suspect they will put a stop to any attempts at an appeal and want to put Blacks era behind them.

Got a strange feeling this week Private Eye is going to be well worth read

As usual a piece of s**t leaves a stink

Originally posted by retep
As usual a piece of s**t leaves a stink

Well, perhaps you could expand on that. As it stands its a rather cryptic comment - who are your referring to? The Barclay Brothers? Conrad Black? Barbara Amiel? Their QC? Gorgeous George? Saddam Hussein?

We need more to go on to evaluate your opinion and work it into the disucssion.

Can a t**d be treasonous? another cryptic clue

Treason? You mean the opposite of patriotic?

Do you mean there are people who would actually switch nationality just for personal gain (http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,1028190,00.html) ?

Please tell us, retep; the public have a right to know.

After all, what could be more patriotic than a foreign-owned news source?

Originally posted by retep
Can a t**d be treasonous? another cryptic clue

Well in this case the turd sued for libel on that, amongst other implicit allegations and won full costs and £150,000 damages. Now you tell me who got it wrong.

Anyone who thinks Gorgeous George is somehow a friend of the Baathist regime that existed before the Allied invasion, might not have payed attention to the details of his attitudes towards Iraq, the Iraqi regime and the UK and US selling arms to Iraq to "fight insurgents" (repress shia muslims and kurds) that are well documented in both Hansard and the popular press.

I'm not saying for one minute that this libel case exonerated him of anything. It's only the third one he's won (AFAIK) against various publications for running this story. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he planted the documents, (And not the INC as is currently suspected) in the certain knowledge that a hack would find these miraculously unburnt documents and fall hook line and sinker, images of a pulitzer in front of them. But no-one has been able to make any allegations stick, let alone actual charges.

Like him or loathe him, he is a gadfly in the circles of power, and we could do with more people like him from all regions of the political spectrum.

In reply to Abdul, there are people out there who would boil and eat there own children for personal gain.

As for the T**d he was elected to take care of matters in this country, he then used his position to further his own views.

"As for the T**d he was elected to take care of matters in this country, he then used his position to further his own views."

Isn't that what all politicians do? It's called democracy. You vote for someone in the hope that they get in and then hope that all their views ally with yours. If they don't you are stuffed.
The only way we are going to get true democracy is if everyone gets to vote on every issue. It's technologically (is that a word?) possible these days i suppose.