April 23, 2003
IAIN MURRAY has an insider's
IAIN MURRAY has an insider's view on the reporter who broke the Gorging George Galloway story. Should David Blair's information prove accurate, Galloway will forever be known as the Bagman of Baghdad:
David Blair is, by all accounts, a man of integrity, personally expelled from Zimbabwe by Robert Mugabe, recipient of the top First in Politics from Oxford and former debating partner of a friend of mine. A man of such credentials falling for a forgery is very unlikely. George's days are numbered. Liberation for the people of Glasgow is at hand.
And ex-blogger Diana Moon, intrigued by Galloway's evasive comment about his Baghdad visits ("he says he did spend one Christmas in Baghdad,
possibly in 1999"), has Nexised the bastard. Following are the two best articles Diana (who stresses that she is reserving judgment) has turned up:
From the BBC, December 30, 1999:
The Vice-Chairman of the Revolution Command Council Mr Izzat Ibrahim received today Mr George Galloway, the Labour Party MP currently visiting Iraq. Vice-President [as heard] Ibrahim conveyed the Iraqi people's warm feelings and greetings to Mr Galloway for his initiative and for what it represents in noble and supreme human values, manifesting the true meanings of loving Iraq and its people which has historic links with the British people.
Addressing Mr Galloway, the vice-chairman said: "Your initiative revived the human principles and the principles of chivalry, which many in Britain used to carry, although nowadays we only find a few, regretfully." The vice-chairman said that the Big Ben to Baghdad trip gave the British people a big service not provided by all British governments throughout the last 50 years, because it showed the true feelings of the British people in rejecting injustice, aggression and dominance.
And from AP on December 28, 1999:
Americans who oppose the U.S. government's policy on Iraq ended a Christmas visit Tuesday meant to focus attention on the suffering of Iraqi children.
Another sympathetic visitor, British Member of Parliament George Galloway, was hailed by the official Iraqi media on Monday for his "spirit of knighthood."
Galloway, a member of the ruling Labor Party, had announced plans to fly in a planeload of medicine early next year. Galloway also said he was collecting donations to build a cancer hospital in Baghdad.
As Diana writes: "Make of these what you will."
Posted by Tim Blair at April 23, 2003 01:44 AM