The real crime is the political one of an organisation about fighting unions taking money from a company involved in privatisation. You couldn’t make it up but it represents another step in the political degeneration of the SWP.

This is a slightly forgotten episode where George was involved with two associates of Osama Bin Laden.

Saad Al Fagih and Mohammed al Massari.

The former has been named as an Al Queda Terrorist associate after his credit card paid for a satellite phone used in the East African Embassy bombings.

The latter,a vicious anti semitic Islamist who had been trying to set up a London base for Bin Laden.

Both Afghan vets.

Galloway seems a little,err unclear on the true nature of his finacial relationship with the pair.

And heres some lying spiv action.

This time for Bin Laden associates al Fagih and Al Massari.

“Last year the Saudi opposition hired a hall in Westminster, and as the MP sponsoring it I had to pay for the hire; they then paid me that money back. Those are the only circumstances in which a single penny changed hands.”

Sunday Times 1996

actually.

” I have now had the chance (having paid for the privilege) of studying my Visa Card records going back to September 1994.

Or course it is impossible to say with absolute certainty what each and every transaction from that long ago represents. But for the Committee’s interest, I list herewith transactions which strike me as having been likely to have been paid by me, by Visa, and reimbursed by Dr Sa’ad and Al Fagih of the CDLR.

19/5/95 British Airways £120.00

26/5/96 Open Flight Ltd £490.00

31/5/95 James Richardson Ltd £ 95.15

27/9/95 British Airways £122.00

28/9/95 British Airways £ 91.00

11/11/95 Open Flight Ltd £553.90

30/11/95 American Express £135.00

12/12/95 Open Flight Ltd £824.00

19/2/96 American Express £ 30.00

26/2/96 Sime Malloch Ltd £440.62

”

Evidence to a House Of Commons Committee

1997

“

Readers who haven’t been following the story of the $10,000 cheque donated to Respect in January of this year can pick up the story here….

http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=1346

romanticism aside, this isn’t about the SWP v. the state, but an internal matter of how workers’ organisations – which have traditionally suffered at the hands of the light fingered, control their finances. It is important.

For those with long memories, this case recalls Liz Davies’ concerns about the Socialist Alliance cheque book – I know all organisations have a hard time managing money, but there does seem to be a lack of concern over financial control.

Beyond that is a grasp of politics that seems shaky, never mind common sense.

Who according to Sideshow Ron McKay is dealing with the US in Iraq.

Yet whom George recently flew out to campaign for in Zureikats election Campaign.

Anyone would think George owed Fawaz.

Mod, that’s a fair enough explanation, but how anyone was supposed to know that if they hadn’t read the previous thread I don’t know.

that’s WHY I included in a link to the previous comments and the **s

I never suggested that it was a Leninist’s trait, self evidently that is not the case, as anyone who can remember the Major government, dodgy peerages and money sloshing around, will attest.

My point was orientated more towards some British Leninists who would invoke Lenin, Engles or Marx in lieu of a robust argument, as if they are minor deities, and as I said, it is not very convincing.

I would have thought that Healy, the WRP and the Libyan scandal were enough to convince people of the errors of taking money from such sources, but apparently not.

I wasn’t in the least bit arguing that it’s OK for the left to take dodgy money cos other parties too. I was arguing that the fact that other parties do illustrates that taking dodgy money is not a ‘Leninist’ trait.

Who ‘runs’ “Party Notes”, it used to be the National Organiser’s weekly task? The earliest posts are spot on about how this represents the only historic climbdown in SWP history. If the money-trail is followed more vigorously there’ll be no end to the rotten schemes that have propped up the “full-timers” in realising their ‘project’ for the British left.

There’ll be more of this, much more, as the dissolution continues.

I’m waiting (without holding my breathe) for the issue of “Party Notes” that announces the firing of Rees, German, Smith and their ilk and the call to a conference entitled “WTF! Why did we let it go on so long?”