A Rare Outbreak of Fairness
I wouldn’t normally republish in full an article from the Guardian; a] because they have a big enough online presence and don’t need my two-pennyworth, thanks, and b] because they are, generally speaking, a bunch of Blair apologists and reformists. (You may need a virtual nosepeg (pace the execrable Ms. Toynbee), so I’ve supplied one below.)
However, for this even-handed article Roy Greenslade (not previously known as a friend of the Left) deserves wide readership, especially US readers who are wondering what this whole Galloway/Senate committee hearing is about.
No need for balance
The media and political elite now regards George Galloway as beyond the pale. So the normal rules of the game don’t apply
Roy Greenslade
Friday May 13, 2005
The GuardianI come not to praise George Galloway but – unlike almost the entire media – not to bury him either. There will be many who snort contemptuously when I say that Galloway is now more sinned against than sinning because he has become so unpopular with both the media and political elites that they regard him as outside the normal rules of the game.
Indeed, to defend him places the defender beyond the pale too. But the victim of what has all the hallmarks of a media feeding frenzy deserves a fair hearing, not only for his personal benefit, but for those he now represents – and in order to confront journalists with their own misguided agendas.
In quick succession since his election victory last week in Bethnal Green and Bow, Galloway has been subjected to a television mauling by Jeremy Paxman, a radio sandbagging by the MP he defeated and a raft of newspaper headlines about a set of reheated allegations which he has not only strenuously denied but which ended with him winning a major libel action.
In spite of Galloway’s court victory and the accumulated evidence in his favour, the BBC saw fit to lead its news bulletins yesterday with the story of supposedly “new” accusations that he received money from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq through its oil-for-food programme. Yet the only difference between the claims made against Galloway by the Daily Telegraph in April 2003 and a US Senate subcommittee this week was that they were based on (already published) documents allegedly retrieved from Iraq’s oil ministry rather than its foreign ministry – and not, as wrongly claimed, that they covered different periods.
In all other essentials, the allegations made by the Senate committee are the same as those originally outlined in the Telegraph articles that resulted in Galloway being awarded ?150,000 in libel damages and ?1.2m in costs, though an appeal against the high court ruling in his favour is still outstanding.
During the case Galloway successfully rebutted every point in the Telegraph story that led its journalists to conclude that he had profited from Saddam’s government. So it’s hardly any wonder that Galloway has found himself repeating his former denials.
In so doing he has argued that the Senate committee is a creature of President Bush and therefore part of a US Republican conspiracy, implying that they may wish to help their Iraq war ally, Tony Blair. When you are under as much public pressure as Galloway is just now, it’s easy to imagine you are the victim of a plot, but there is certainly no media conspiracy against him. In a sense it’s worse than that. He has become so much of a pariah that a plot is unnecessary.
Galloway has achieved the dubious honour of being the media’s new leftwing whipping boy, following in a line that includes Arthur Scargill, Tony Benn and Ken Livingstone. Like them, he has dared to confront not only the old establishment but also its Labour alternative (or, in his eyes, the new establishment), having been expelled from the party on the basis of what might be charitably described as rather dubious reasoning.
Along the way he has also outraged the media by refusing to accept its attacks on him, having survived any number of scrapes with newspapers anxious to find him guilty of wrongdoing. He has regularly sued for libel and, worse still in the eyes of journalists, has always won, sometimes handsomely. I must declare an interest here: I have also lost to him in a libel action; but, unlike many who have suffered similarly, I bear him no grudge.
Galloway raises the hackles both of the collective media and of individual journalists. How else can one explain the extraordinary way in which Jeremy Paxman greeted Galloway’s election victory for his Respect party over Labour’s sitting MP, Oona King, in east London? “Mr Galloway,” demanded Paxman, “are you proud of having got rid of one of the very few black women in parliament?” Galloway rightly replied, “What a preposterous question,” and soon walked out of the interview.
Earlier that week he had also cut short an ITV interview after accusing the presenters of being liars for claiming he was a supporter of Saddam. Another pre-election interview, with the Sky News political editor Adam Boulton, was going well until Galloway was suddenly asked about the suggestion that he and his wife were planning to divorce. This time Galloway held on to his temper by countering that it was a strange question for Boulton to ask, given his own previous marital difficulties. It was a typically robust reply from Galloway – and certainly not unjustified in the circumstances – but it was also a reminder of why journalists bridle at dealing with him. Unlike so many politicians, who only affect to clash with interviewers in public, Galloway refuses to knuckle down and play the game. He takes no prisoners.
The divorce story, a tabloid-style kiss-and-tell interview with Galloway’s wife, was published by the Sunday Times four days before the election. It was seen by Galloway as an example of collusion between the paper and his New Labour opponents, a conclusion reinforced when the article was reproduced in English and Bengali and flyposted around the East End. “It has clearly been raised by the Sunday Times,” he said, “to damage me in the election,” a move he believed showed Labour’s desperation at the possibility of King losing her seat.
Naturally, when she did lose, King was devastated, as were many other unseated MPs. But, unlike them, she was given a lengthy slot on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this week to air her grievances in what was a strikingly tame interview – no balancing material was offered – allowing her to vent her spleen about the nature of a “dirty” campaign and insinuating that Galloway’s Respect party had been responsible for her suffering anti-semitic slurs.
A Respect spokesman described the claims as ludicrous and a smear. But I saw it differently. The nature of the King interview, in which she was not challenged with anything like that programme’s normal robustness, was further evidence of the way Galloway is now regarded within the media. He is simply not being given a fair crack of the whip.
Roy Greenslade is the Guardian’s media commentator
It doesn’t really matter what you think of Galloway as a person. This is about interfering with the clearly expressed democratic will of an electorate. And where is the outrage from the UK press that a foreign government has declared one of our elected represenatives guilty, with no evidence and no trial?
It’s now apparently OK for for foreign governments to interfere with our elected government representatives – but imagine the shoe on the other foot. A British MP in committee, protected by parliamentary privilege, accuses a US senator of treason. Imagine the outrage, and not just from the wingnuts. Remember the Clark County furore?
If the situation were reversed there would be howls of anger and calls for a pre-emptive tactical nuclear strike on London.
The UK media is so blinded by its sycophancy to New Labour that it wilfully refuses to see what a dangerous precedent this action by the US sets. But- I can’t wait to see Galloway take on the sub-committee – it’s always good to see truth spoken to power.
