George Galloway paid £80,000 a year by TV station with alleged ties to Syria and Iran

RESPECT PARTY MP George Galloway receives nearly £80,000 a year by Lebanese television station Al Mayadeen, it was revealed yesterday.

The Bradford West MP presents a fortnightly show, A Free Word, on the recently established station, which is a rival to Al Jazeera. He is reported to earn around £3,000 for every episode.

Al Mayadeen has refused to make public its financial backers, but has denied that it is supported by Iran and a cousin of Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad. It has also been claimed that the Al Mayadeen’s head of news is married to a former aide to Assad, and that the station’s manager is a former head of Al-Manar - the TV station linked with Hezbollah.

The channel has insisted that it is ‘completely independent’ and is funded by Arab businessmen, with Mr Galloway adding that the channel is ‘privately owned.’

The former Glasgow MP has used the programme to rail against western support for the Syrian uprising, describing Assad as ‘the last bastion of Arab dignity.’

The news comes after Mr Galloway found himself embroiled in a separate controversy, with users on the social networking site Twitter calling for his resignation after the MP used a pejorative term for a disabled person to insult another user.