now bye george galloway um first of all
you've beaten the daily telegraph um who
else are you going to sue for repeating
the libel given the other papers and
lead ministers criticized you
well uh let me get this one over first
it's been quite a grueling affair i had
to risk a total ruin to bring this case
if i had lost it i would have been
homeless jobless
and penniless
and bankrupt and out of public office
for good as a bankrupt
so it's not a small undertaking such a
battle as this
but the victory has been as your report
has just said
very comprehensive but
i have now collected
although i've not yet got the cash a
quarter of a million pounds in libel
damages in six months
from the times the sunday times the
christian science monitor so if you're
in a row you might as well go on well i
may well uh but i'll if you don't mind
take my legal counsel uh on that rather
than discuss it on news night um
you are the only person that's actually
claimed the documents were forgeries
do you know who forged them have you an
idea who follows them
well i've claimed throughout that the
documents in the daily telegraph case
were fake i'm not able to establish that
there are forgeries we are talking about
a photocopy of a document illegibly
signed
citing a report from an unnamed
intelligence officer
found miraculously in a burning building
in baghdad
baghdad is under the control of the
daily telegraph's friends the puppet
regime
i'm not able to go there i'm not able
properly to investigate it but i do know
that the other documents in the other
cases
uh were
found to be forgeries and i have no
doubt that this document is a fake so
why
would anyone forge this exactly well
you know you can say why but you know
for a fact because in the very same
courtroom court 13 in the strand at the
high court
one of the world's great newspapers the
christian science monitor was forced to
pay me substantial damages and make an
apology of the most groveling kind for
publishing on its front page in 93
countries the allegation that i had
taken
with this would you blame the ownership
would you pay the editorial staff of the
telegraph well i think the
uh provenance of the document
is highly contentious
i will be seeking parliamentary
opportunities to discuss that matter
further in the next days and weeks one
day we'll know who produced this fake
document but a very good test on these
occasions is to ask who benefits who
benefited from
the attempt to destroy one of the
leading figures in the british anti-war
movement and when you ask that question
certain answers flash up in your mind
and i think the intelligent viewers of
newsnight can work that out for
themselves so what are you going to do
with the money
well i haven't got it yet because the
telegraph
have asked for
leave to appeal against the judge's
refusal to allow them leave to appeal
uh it'll be some time before uh that's
all worked out but there is a general
election coming up i will be standing so
it's your coffer in the uh bethnal green
ball constituency and it'll it'll buy
quite a few election leaflets you will
see it time and again that 1994 film and
so people are still unclear about your
attitude towards the regime
just can you nail this now
is it better for iraq that saddam has
gone well people shouldn't be unclear
they
some of them are willfully unclear this
was made clear in the court case with a
volume and i mean a volume
of
denunciations from me going back to the
1970s is it better for iraq he's gone
iraq is definitely not better off today
than it was before the war
anyone who watches television knows that
but is it better
all countries are better off without
their dictators but the price of getting
rid of this dictator has been an ocean
of blood galloway is here very good
morning to you
how are you good it's been three years
of
facing total ruin bankruptcy if i'd lost
this case i would have been homeless
jobless
uh without a bank account and uh and
bankrupt and out of public life for good
so it was a very high stakes
three years is a long battle
but i'm obviously very pleased now to
have finally won it
i mean do you feel in a way that the the
the telegraph is almost trying to put
that financial pressure on you
well you know one of the problems of
trying to clear your name from that kind
of assault by
multi-billionaire owners of newspapers
is that if they dig in and go all the
way then you have to risk absolutely
everything in the libel courts most
people would have balked at that i
didn't feel that i was able to i had to
write there are those that say that you
put yourself up for that sort of thing
then well you don't put yourself up for
being lied about and that's what libel
is it's somebody publishing lies about
you and
i don't think anyone puts themselves up
for that
no the
saddam regime never gave me any money
but the newspapers that alleged that he
did have had to give me plenty and had
to pay out plenty now millions of pounds
because of course 150 000 to me 1.6
million in costs and there are several
other newspapers in the same frame can
you draw a line under this now i want to
ask you about moving on but um robert
mckay in scotland asks if the u.s senate
committee invites you back to answer
more allegations would you go and why
give them the time
uh well i demanded that they uh have me
back
because i think i did quite well the
last time and i think it two-car
anti-war anti-bush campaign
forward and and most even critics uh
agreed with that so
that's probably the reason why they
won't ask me back but when senator
coleman the chairman of the committee
faces election next november i'll be
there in minnesota
how do you move on now
well i'm fighting the local elections
which are now 80 days exactly away
we're fighting all over the country we
hope to make a breakthrough perhaps
particularly in east london but all the
publicity over big brother we we have to
talk about that i mean you you were
pretty largely pilloried by most
sections of the community you must have
felt under pressure
you don't think that's bad that's
completely untrue i was i was pillared
by more sections of the media the same
media that have been labeling me for 20
years but far from being pilloried by
the community
uh there are more people attending my
public meetings more people buying my
books more people back is that just the
element of you being controversial you
don't regret that no partly you're right
i mean just because you're famous
doesn't mean people agree with your
politics but it's not a bad start when
people come up and ask you if they can
take their picture with you what about
the question then that people will put
or and have put that why do you do what
you do is it for you george galloway or
is it for the politics are they
justified in asking that question no
life would be very much easier if i just
acted like other mps and sat in the
house of commons bar and picked up my
check at the end of the month and it
wasn't even a legend in the house next
door never mind be asked into the big
brother house but i
don't have unlimited time left to me in
this life no one does of course but i
think that in the next 15 20 years i
want to spend my time out there in the
public fighting for my ideas my policies
after all your news bulletin's been
dominated today by the very issues with
which i'm most associated iraq the
middle east the bush blair alliance and
so on these are the biggest issues of
the day but isn't that the very point i
mean those are the issues that that you
want to highlight but because you're on
big brother that is what in fact
dominates not what you're trying to say
do you feel that in a way you weren't
done over in a way by the big brother
experience did you realize it was going
to come out like if you're if you'll
forgive the pun i don't believe in
crying over spilt milk
i i i'm making use of did you regret
that
well i was amazed i was amazed at how
that went down i didn't think that would
even make the cut would even make the
progress i was right honestly it shows
you how how naive i am but uh you know i
was dressed in a lab coat i was asked to
do something foolish for charity we made
more than half a million pounds for
charity by the way that's double what we
made last year uh and i was asked to ask
to behave like a cat could you do it
again well if the cause was right and
the uh and the cause was going to
benefit well enough that then i would i
see ruler lens has now signed up as a
cat food
so no wind that blows nobody any good i
doubt it's the last we'll be hearing
from you