Galloway

Remember George Galloway?
He's still at it, although I would have expected him to have some shame at being caught with his hand in Saddam's cookie jar. Anyway, his libel trial is underway. Hope you're having a good day and he's not. From Annanova:

Galloway 'opposed Saddam's tyranny'

George Galloway is a "long-standing opponent of tyranny and oppression", the High Court heard at the start of the MP's long-awaited libel action against the Daily Telegraph.

Mr Galloway, dressed in a dark suit and patterned red tie, sat encircled by lawyers as his QC, Richard Rampton, opened his case over an April 2003 story about his alleged financial links to Saddam Hussein.

He told Mr Justice Eady, who is hearing the five-day case without a jury, that the 50-year-old MP for Glasgow Kelvin had an interest in the Middle East that went back to the 1970s.

He said: "One of his interests has been to champion what he sees as the need for freedom and justice for the Palestinian people in the Middle East.

"He has also been a long-standing opponent of tyranny and oppression. That has particular reference to this case because one of his targets dating from the Seventies was the tyrannical regime of Saddam Hussein and his cronies in Iraq.

"He has been entirely consistent about that ever since that date up until the fall of Saddam Hussein more recently.

"He has been the leader of a campaign against the regime and for the sake of the Iraqi people at a time, and through the whole of the period, when Western governments were in great good friendship with Saddam Hussein."

Mr Galloway, who was expelled from the Labour Party in October last year, is likely to face cross-examination by the newspaper's QC, James Price.

The case is expected to focus on detailed legal submissions on the so-called "Reynolds qualified privilege defence".

Named after the case in which it was first developed, involving former Irish premier Albert Reynolds, it involves considering whether it was responsible journalism and in the public interest for the newspaper to publish the contents of documents on which their story was based.