BBC and Galloway

Eddie Mair presents Radio 4’s ‘PM’. He is an attractive presenter with a nice line in dry wit. But on Thursday he fell victim to a bad script. In his best sneery, what-are-the-Yanks-up-to-now voice, he said, “[The Senate report] prints a picture of Mr Galloway meeting Saddam Hussein and calls the MP “an outspoken supporter of the Iraqi regime” and it cites in its first paragraph the now famous line used by Mr Galloway, ‘I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability’, but does not acknowledge in the body of the report Mr Galloway’s insistence that that remark was directed at the Iraqi people in general’.

Now this is what is known as ‘spinning’. Galloway first denied meeting Saddam Hussein, saying. "I had no opportunity because we were in a group of about fifty people. I didn't actually speak to him face to face." (Daily Record, 21st January). When TV pictures showed the opposite was true Galloway adopted the ‘I-was-speaking-to-the-Iraqi-people explanation. But the full peroration makes clear that this was not the case either. Galloway stood before Saddam Hussein and said ‘Your Excellency, Mr President. I greet you in the name of the many thousands of people in Britain who stood against the tide and opposed the war and aggression against Iraq and continue to oppose the war by economic means which is aimed to strangle the life out of the great people of Iraq. "I greet you too, in the name of the Palestinian people…..I thought the President would appreciate to know that even today, three years after the war, I still meet families who are calling their newborn sons Saddam…Sir, I salute your courage, your strength your indefatigability. And I want you to know that we are with you until victory, until victory until Jerusalem." (The Times, 20th January, 1994). (AJ)