April 07, 2003

If you read my latest

If you read my latest Meandering, you will remember George Galloway, MP for Glasgow Kelvin and friend of what we might as well call the former Iraqi regime. Even if you excuse his political views as terribly misguided and somehow think that his call for all US and UK soldiers to be tried as war criminals is supportable, it is now clear that he is not merely stupid. He is entirely lacking in character. Or so demonstrated The Times on Saturday.

Galloway created a high-profile fund to fly a little Iraqi girl with leukaemia to Glasgow for treatment. He set up the Miriam Appeal. On official House of Commons stationery, he wrote: “The Mariam Appeal has had to guarantee the costs of her treatment which could cost up to £50,000. The appeal’s target is £100,000 with the balance being sent back to Iraq in medicines and medical supplies for the children she has had to leave behind.”

But how did he spend the money? According to The Times, “The appeal paid for 14 overseas trips by the Glasgow MP between September 1999 and January 2002, mostly including flights and frequently hotel bills. He visited Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Hungary, Belgium, New York and Romania.”

Further, “Mr Galloway flew from a private airfield in Kent via Bulgaria to Baghdad to break the British air embargo of Iraq. His flight, said to have been paid for by private donations to the Mariam Appeal, contained no humanitarian aid. The MP brought six men, including Stuart Halford, the appeal’s director, to an anti-sanctions conference.”

George couldn’t satisfy his addiction to foreign travel on the back of little Miriam, so in June 2000 he set up the Great Britain-Iraq Society, which, for a £25 membership promised to “circulate a newsletter, publish material, organise events, exchange visits, organise trade missions, religious and other tourism”.

I don’t know what else the group has done, but according to The Times “It has paid for seven overseas visits by the MP, usually including the cost of flights. The destinations were to Jordan, Morocco, Beirut and Kiev, along with four trips to Iraq.”

But The Times is not the only source of trouble for the MP they call “the member for Baghdad Central”. It looks like the Labour Party has had enough of Galloway. Hurling insults and recriminations at Tony Blair and urging troops to disobey orders looks like it will eventually result in expulsion from the Labour Party. And while the former offence is not criminal, the latter is, and there are calls for prosecution under the Incitement to Disaffection Act 1934.

Posted by david at April 7, 2003 09:54 PM
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