TORYGRAPH CAUGHT PEDDLING PROPAGANDA

It seems that Gorgeous George has been finally been awarded £150,000 in libel damages from the Daily Telegraph over claims he received a backhander from Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.

The Glasgow Kelvin MP was awarded the damages in compensation for articles published by the paper in April 2003. The Telegraph had denied libel, saying during the case that it had not intended to "suggest guilt", but published the story because there was a case to answer.

What a load of cobblers, a dangerous journalistic precedent could have been set here to publish allegations you know to be false – but feel that they need to be aired. I could for example write that the Daily Telegraph ahs for years been used by elements within the Security services to smear politicians they want to undermine. I don’t for a minute believe this to be actually ‘true’ in any real sense of the word, but I thought it should be aired.

But mud sticks – as Seamus Milne wrote in the Enemy Within the successful smearing of Arthur Scargill the story that he and the NUM had received money from Colonel Gaddafi was later proven to be a complete fabrication, but who cares? This is not new.

According to Peter Wright, MI5 had always about twenty senior journalists working for it in the national press. "They were not employed directly by us", he explained "but we regarded them as agents because they were happy to be associated with us".

George Galloways site here.