IN: George Galloway (born 16 August 1954) is a British politician, broadcaster, and writer. Between 1987 and 2015, with a gap in 2010-12, he represented four constituencies as a Member of Parliament, elected as a candidate for the Labour Party and later the Respect Party. After becoming the youngest ever Chairman of the Scottish Labour Party in 1981, he became General Secretary of the London-based charity War on Want in 1983, remaining in the post until elected as MP for Glasgow Hillhead (later Glasgow Kelvin) at the 1987 general election. In 2003, Galloway was expelled from the Labour Party, having been found guilty by the party's national constitutional committee of four of the five charges of bringing the party into disrepute, including having called on Arabs to fight British troops.

In 1998, Galloway founded the Mariam Appeal which was intended, according to its website's welcome page in 1999, "to campaign against sanctions on Iraq which are having disastrous effects on the ordinary people of Iraq". The campaign was named after Mariam Hamza, a child flown by the fund from Iraq to Britain to receive treatment for leukaemia. The intention was to raise awareness of the suffering and death of hundreds of thousands of other Iraqi children, due to poor health conditions and lack of suitable medicines and facilities, and to campaign for the lifting of the Iraq sanctions that many maintained were responsible for that situation. In 1999, Galloway was criticised for spending Christmas in Iraq with Tariq Aziz, who was Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister at the time. In a 17 May 2005 hearing of the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Galloway stated that he had many meetings with Aziz, and characterised their relationship as friendly. In all, he has admitted to more than ten meetings with Aziz.  The fund received scrutiny during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, after a complaint that Galloway used some donated money to pay for his travel expenses. He responded by stating that the expenses were incurred in his capacity as the Appeal's chairman. Although the Mariam Appeal was never a registered charity and never intended to be such, it was investigated by the Charity Commission. The report of this year-long inquiry, published in June 2004, found that the Mariam Appeal was undertaking charitable work (and so ought to have registered with them), but did not substantiate allegations that any funds had been misused. It emerged some years later that Galloway had appealed in a letter dated 24 April 2003 to Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney-General, to stop the investigation into the Mariam Appeal. According to a report in The Times, after the letter was released under the Freedom of Information Act, Galloway falsely asserted that the Appeal "received no money from Iraq".  A further Charity Commission Report published on 7 June 2007 found that the Appeal had received funds from Fawaz Zureikat that originated from the Oil For Food programme, and concluded that:  Although Mr Galloway, Mr Halford and Mr Al-Mukhtar have confirmed that they were unaware of the source of Mr Zureikat's donations, the Commission has concluded that the charity trustees should have made further enquiries when accepting such large single and cumulative donations to satisfy themselves as to their origin and legitimacy. The Commission's conclusion is that the charity trustees did not properly discharge their duty of care as trustees to the Appeal in respect of these donations ... The Commission is also concerned, having considered the totality of the evidence before it, that Mr Galloway may also have known of the connection between the Appeal and the Programme.  Galloway, in response, stated: "I've always disputed the Commission's retrospective view that a campaign to win a change in national and international policy - a political campaign - was, in fact, a charity".

Did Iraq appreciate his help?

OUT: Galloway stated that he had many meetings with Aziz, and characterised their relationship as friendly.


IN: Sir George Henry Martin  (3 January 1926 - 8 March 2016) was an English record producer, arranger, composer, conductor, audio engineer, and musician. He was referred to as the "Fifth Beatle", including by Paul McCartney, in reference to his extensive involvement on each of the Beatles' original albums. Martin produced 30 number-one hit singles in the United Kingdom and 23 number-one hits in the United States. Martin produced comedy and novelty records in the early 1950s, working with Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan, and Bernard Cribbins, among others.

Following his graduation, he worked for the BBC's classical music department, then joined EMI in 1950 as an assistant to Oscar Preuss, the head of EMI's Parlophone Records from 1950 to 1955. Although having been regarded by EMI as a vital German imprint in the past, it was then not taken seriously and only used for EMI's insignificant acts. After taking over Parlophone, as head of artists and repertoire, when Preuss retired in 1955, Martin recorded classical and Baroque music, original cast recordings, and regional music from around Britain and Ireland.  Martin also produced numerous comedy and novelty records. His first hit for Parlophone was the "Mock Mozart" single by Peter Ustinov with Antony Hopkins - a record reluctantly released in 1952 by EMI, only after Preuss insisted they give his young assistant, Martin, a chance. Later that decade Martin worked with Peter Sellers on two very popular comedy LPs. One was released on 10 format and called The Best Of Sellers, the second was released in 1957, being called Songs for Swinging Sellers (a spoof on Frank Sinatra's LP Songs for Swingin' Lovers!). As he had worked with Sellers, he also came to know Spike Milligan, with whom he became a firm friend, and best man at Milligan's second marriage: "I loved The Goon Show, and issued an album of it on my label Parlophone, which is how I got to know Spike." The album was Bridge on the River Wye. It was a spoof of the film The Bridge on the River Kwai, being based on the 1957 Goon Show episode "An African Incident." It was intended to have the same name as the film, but shortly before its release, the film company threatened legal action if the name was used. Martin edited out the 'K' every time the word Kwai was spoken, with Bridge on the River Wye being the result. The River Wye is a river that runs through England and Wales. The album featured Milligan, Sellers, Jonathan Miller, and Peter Cook, playing various characters.  Other comedians Martin worked with included Bernard Cribbins, Charlie Drake, Terry Scott, Bruce Forsyth, Michael Bentine, Dudley Moore, Flanders and Swann, Lance Percival, Joan Sims, Bill Oddie, and The Alberts. Martin worked with both Jim Dale and the Vipers Skiffle Group, with whom he had a number of hits. In early 1962, under the pseudonym "Ray Cathode," Martin released an early electronic dance single, "Time Beat" - recorded at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. As Martin wanted to add rock and roll to Parlophone's repertoire, he struggled to find a "fireproof" hit-making pop artist or group.  As a producer, Martin recorded the two-man show featuring Michael Flanders and Donald Swann, At the Drop of a Hat, which sold steadily for twenty-five years, although Martin's breakthrough as a producer came with the Beyond the Fringe show cast album, which starred Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett, and Jonathan Miller, and he would also produce the accompanying soundtrack album for David Frost's satirical BBC TV show That Was the Week That Was in 1963. Martin's work transformed the profile of Parlophone from a "sad little company" to a very profitable business.

Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?

OUT:
As a producer, Martin recorded the two-man show featuring Michael Flanders and Donald Swann, At the Drop of a Hat,