The fall of Tommy Sheridan
Posted on Thursday 23 December, 2010
Filed Under Scottish Socialist Party
THAT Tommy Sheridan was the most charismatic and gifted revolutionary socialist politician of recent decades is beyond serious dispute, and I always used to admire him for that. I still do, I suppose.
In a period where the left failed to find a widespread hearing, he alone proved capable of building a substantial electoral base for basic class struggle ideas. Without him, the Scottish Socialist Party would not have achieved the measure of success it did secure, and the credit for this can never be taken away from him.
That he used the fame that inevitably ensued to his personal sexual advantage is not an issue that should be of pressing concern to anyone other than himself and those with whom he slept. No one should cast judgement on the consensual relationships or others, be they gay, straight, marital, adulterous, based on auto-erotic asphyxiation, administered by hookers dressed up in Luftwaffe uniforms, or participated in by however many can squeeze into a bed in a cheap hotel room.
At the time the News of the World published details of Sheridan’s visits to a swingers’ club in Manchester, he had sufficient popularity North of the Border to take exactly that stance. A dignified ‘no comment’ or a rigid ‘none of your business’ line, and he would have rode out the publicity, in much the same way as any other married politician caught playing away by the red tops.
There are enough broadminded adults out there to ensure that nookie with someone other than the missus is not the automatic end of a political career, as figures from Shagger Norris to Paddy Pantsdown can testify. Millions of us could not cast the first stone.
I cannot imagine what drove Sheridan to sue for libel instead. In a country where religious feelings are more widespread than in England, perhaps he felt that the revelations were electorally damaging. Perhaps he saw a one-off opportunity to make some serious cash. One day his memoirs will presumably tell us.
But what was inadmissible right from the start was his expectation that his comrades were somehow duty bound to stand up in the dock and commit the criminal offence of perjury in his support.
Sheridan’s supporters have argued all along that it is the elementary responsibility of socialists to defend other socialists against the Murdoch press, at all times and in all circumstances, and at any degree of jeopardy. The reality is that everything depends on the political issues at stake. Where there is sufficient cause for such a risk, then the correct course would naturally be to take it.
But unlike, say, John Maclean or the leadership of the Communist Party of Great Britain before the general strike, Sheridan was not before the court on charges of sedition. Unlike Jock Haston, Roy Tearse, Heaton Lee and Ann Keen, he did not stand in front of a jury for the instigation of unofficial industrial action. Unlike Ricky Tomlinson, Des Warren, the Pentonville Five or hundreds of miners in 1984 and 1985, the issue at hand was not his conduct on the picket line.
Sheridan’s conviction today flows entirely from his insane determination to lie about his inability to keep it in his trousers. As a result, he has destroyed everything he spent the first half of his life building up, just at a time when a party premised on militant opposition to coalition austerity could truly have hit the big time. However sorry one has to feel for the family, the biggest tragedy about what has happened is the setback this represents for the far left as a whole.
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74 Responses to “The fall of Tommy Sheridan”
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CGF. Well if you are innocent you would not need to ask anyone to lie for you. Would you! Hardly any point if you are innocent. I think CGF if you get caught with your flies open and are not taken a piss then you should be man enough, dare I say have the fuckin bottle to take the consequences and not involve your pals to protect your vanity. As I said previously I have no time for the SSP and fellow travellers but they now have some credibility.
Tommy Sheridan made more impact, with the SSP,than most of the British left has achieved in its history. It is a great shame that he and the SSP have ben brought down by his own weaknesses. Why did he want his comrades to lie? To save his marriage perhaps? Marriage was always more important to those in Militant than to the rest of the left.
But there is a more general lesson. The NoW obviously turned some of those he thought were his personal friends (I make no allegations aginst his close comrades in the SSP) and possibly family also. They deliberately brought him down, using his own weaknesses. How come one of his so-called friends was recording a private conversation?
And what about MI6 (or is it 5?) Their job is to fight socialist movements that threaten the British state. Surely this is exactly how they would go about it?
Jimmy,
Your point about Sheridan asking his party comrades to lie assumes that he was indeed lying in order to win his defamation case. I do not accept that predicate assumption.
However, let me say this. It strikes me as odd that Sheridan’s accusers say that they refused to lie because there was too much at stake for them personally. This implies that there was little or nothing at stake for them in choosing not to lie. Personally, this is true. Politically, this is false: their party and its credibility are in tatters. This was entirely predictable.
So let us assume that everything they say is correct: that they were indeed put in an impossible position by Sheridan’s determination to pursue the action against the NOTW. The obvious question which arises is: why did they not – poor little put-upon innocents that they were in this dilemma – do everything in their power to salvage something politically from the situation? Why didn’t they all resign from the SSP and at least allow the younger generation to take over? (Of course, their response to this would be to point out that the younger generation of activists are no less split into the pro and anti Sheridan factions – so, again, we hit the main fault line, the inconsistency of their propaganda which, on the one hand, portrays them as being unexpectedly put in an impossible position by Sheridan and yet, on the other hand, says that Sheridan was driven by “power and greed” and a misogynist etc etc.)
At about 35 minutes in Sheridan becomes completely delusional as he tries to explain his denial of claims that he’d attended Cupid’s.
By what right did he expect people to lie for him and his sticking by his claims of scabbing is just vile. If he’d followed the party’s advice this all could have been avoided.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00xp4ps/The_Rise_and_Lies_of_Tommy_Sheridan/
CGF. There is no point in assuming. The fact is they the majority refused to lie for him. All they did was to ask him to step down into another position tell the truth and then carry on as normal. His indiscretions would have by now been long forgotten. Jeff above mentions MI5/6. They do monitor what is considered anti democratic groups perhaps they run the Swingers Club for entrapment purposes. There I go with conspiracy theories.
In reply to Jimmy Glesga, whose comments on this site I often read with interest. MI6 don’t just monitor socialist groups but they also try to bring them down when they get too strong – that’s what they are for. They might not run swingers clubs for entrapnment purposes, but I am sure they would employ ex-NoW journalists to entrap socialists like Tommy by taking him to them, having affairs with them, and they would try to bribe or turn his friends. Don’t take my word for it – read ‘Spycatcher’.
I’ve checked on Wikipedia (for what it’s worth). MI5 does internal so they would have targetted the SSP. MI6 is external. Just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean they are not out to get you.
“There is no point in assuming. The fact is they the majority refused to lie for him. All they did was to ask him to step down into another position tell the truth and then carry on as normal.”
You’ve missed my point. That “the majority refused to lie for him” is only a fact IF you accept their claim that he asked them in the first instance. Sheridan denies this. I don’t know either way. (I will be interested to watch the broadcast linked to by Liam to see how credible Sheridan is.)
However, you still have not responded to my other point i.e. what credible socialist organisation would happily keep someone (especially an ambitious and charismatic character like Sheridan) who was motivated only by “power and greed” in their ranks?
CGF. Are you referring to his present or previous party regarding keeping in the ranks? He was welcome to stay in the ranks in his previous party albeit in a reduced status
which could have been part of his problem.
Jeff. On a lighter note perhaps you should consider that Big Tam was not entrapped and voluntarily went with those two burds tae the Swingers. They are not exactly dare I say burds you would offer a second glance. I think people often exaggerate the influence MI5/6 has on socialist parties. It cuts out their work when the members are screwing each other. I did attend a public meeting with Philip Agee in attendance during the seventies. You may recall the CIA were after him for his book Inside the Company. Two sneakies were pointed out in the audience by the Chair. They got up and left much to the laughter of those remaining. But I am sure a few more would have been in the audience.
“Are you referring to his present or previous party regarding keeping in the ranks? He was welcome to stay in the ranks in his previous party albeit in a reduced status”
I am talking about his previous party. Why did they welcome the idea of this wicked troll running around the ranks in their party if he really was – as they claim – motivated only by “power and greed”? Are they completely incompetent as organisers? Or are they – as anyone with any sense can recognise – just plotters, schemers and liars?
CGF. He was a founder member of his previous party. You would have to ask those that remain in the SSP your last three questions. They do have a website the last time I looked. Ask them.
That’s not how this works, Jimmy. It’s precisely because SOMEONE here is lying that all we can do is examine the case and search for some consistency (of both statement and action). The side which is deemed the most consistent should be given the benefit of the doubt.
And look at the evidence. One side in this has pretty consistently maintained the same story (and body of evidence) from day one. The other side has a story which doesn’t add up (i.e. the ludicrous idea that they would just happily let Sheridan run freely around the ranks of the SSP even though they believed that his only motivation was power and greed) and which has been constructed through secret recordings in which the subject’s face is never seen (and then sold for hundreds of thousands), affidavits volunteered to the bourgeois press, and critical documents which only popped-up after Sheridan won his defamation case.
As I said before – wake up, man.
CGF. A jury consisting of ten women and two men heard the evidence and found him guilty. This was a serious criminal trial unlike the civil defamation trial against the NofW where who won the money was at stake. And what jury would not want to fuck the NofW. Big Tam was on the front page of the Scottish Sunday Mail today. (Mirror Group)Bourgeois Press. He used to be a columnist for this rag group. Apparently he used this rag to have a go at the NofW rag. But the good news is he is still going to fight the ‘Forces of Evil’. Re found religion much quicker than I thought. I hope he is not losing the plot. Also CGF I have had a look at a few lefties websites lately and they all seem to preach the same gospel. This includes the SSP and Solidarity. Any idea why they argue so much with each other? Maybe not enough Top Jobs to go around if they were united!
CGF. The side that is more consistent may be the clever better prepared liars.
“The side that is more consistent may be the clever better prepared liars.”
Absolutely. That I do not dispute. That’s why I said that the more consistent side should be given the benefit of the doubt, which is not the same as giving them a 100%, cast-iron guarantee stamp of approval.
And, as it happens, I agree with you about sectarian splits often being a case of small fish trying to increase their size by creating smaller ponds.
Hi Dave – Your post on Tommy Sheridan is spot on : http://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2010/12/23/tommy-sheridan-convicted/#comment-87337
There is one additional point – the evidence suggests News of the World phone-hacking may have played a role in this case – in other words the Murdoch Organisation gained information about the private life of Tommy Sheridan and other public figures illegally. In true tabloid fashion, it then decorated the prosaic truth with fairy tale lies.
Nick Davies of the Guardian is running a campaign against the power of the right-wing tabloids and their use of unethical private life data – more power to him.
Millions of people buy into tabloid fairy-tales – but can be repelled by its lies about real flesh-and-blood likeable people – the category “escapism” does not start to explain this fantasy-land.
Galloway has a lovely article in the Daily Record. It’s the usual mixture of speculation and self-promotion, plus the “I was a sexy brute once”…
Here’s a few excerpts:
My reasonable doubts over Tommy Sheridan verdict
By George Galloway on Dec 27, 10
…A downmarket, foreign-owned newspaper known for its hatred of socialism, a bizarre Scottish Trotskyite sect in the grip of a Wee-Free brand of feminism and a Lothians police force under pressure to get results. You can see that this story is going to run and run. It certainly will if I get to Holyrood in May.
No one knows what’s going on in other people’s bedrooms. It’s possible that the Tommy I’ve known for nearly 30 years deceived me as to his true character but I don’t think so. As a good looking young man, sure, Tommy would have legions of female admirers. I was that soldier once! He may have slept with some, even many of them, though he never breathed a word of it to me.
Maybe he even cheated on his wife Gail, as fragrant and graceful a wife as any man could ever have. With Anvar Khan? But I doubt it. At least I have “reasonable doubts” about it. Which is why the verdict came as such a shock. And why I hope this verdict is appealed.
I spent the last week in a damp bed wrestling with influenza. No floozy, this was the real deal.
Burning temperature, aching bones, chest raw with coughing, hallucinatory dreams. Still, better than a week in bed with Anvar Khan.
And the very thought of sucking another cigar again is just inconceivable. A 40-year habit won’t be easy to kick but I think I’m in the right place to try again: flat on my back gasping for breath. Wish me luck as I wave them goodbye.
http://blogs.dailyrecord.co.uk/georgegalloway/2010/12/my-reasonable-doubts-over-tommy-verdict.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheDailyRecord%2FGeorgeGalloway+%28The+Daily+Record+-+George+Galloway%29
that article from the “Sunday Mail”
Disgraced politician Tommy Sheridan insists he will fight on despite facing jail
Dec 26 2010 Exclusive by Mark Aitken, Sunday Mail
SHAMELESS Tommy Sheridan yesterday broke his silence with a defiant Christmas Day message. The disgraced ex-MSP vowed “the fight is not over” despite facing prison and financial ruin after being convicted of lying in court about his visit to a seedy sex club.
After his conviction on Thursday, Sheridan’s lawyer said he would not comment until after he was sentenced next month.
But in a string of messages on the social networking site Facebook, the disgraced former leader of the Scottish Socialist Party vowed to continue to battle “the forces of darkness”.
Sheridan claimed to be writing on behalf of himself, wife Gail and daughter Gabrielle and said : “We may have narrowly lost a court case but we still have our families, real friends and our health. “That is so much more than many in our society. Real stress is wee kiddies struggling for breath at Yorkhill or families devastated by news of cancer affecting a loved one.
“We are strong and will continue to fight against the forces of darkness. A very merry xmas to you all. Solidarity always. T, G and wee G.” In another message, he thanked his backers for their “wonderful support”.
He wrote: “Gail and I have been sustained and inspired by the comments and expressions of solidarity from all across Scotland and further afield. “It has been a difficult six years but love and basic human solidarity from others has seen us through it.”
Sheridan, pictured on Facebook with wife Gail and fellow Celebrity Big Brother Coolio, also posted a message on his sister Lynn’s Facebook page. He wrote: “We fought hard and with dignity. Those with all the power were given a fright. The fight is not over.”
The disgraced former Scottish Socialist Party leader was found guilty on Thursday of perjury after a 12-week trial at the High Court in Glasgow. Sheridan, 46, was convicted of lying under oath five times during his s200,000 defamation victory against the News of the World in 2006.
He was freed to spend Christmas with wife Gail and five-year-old Gabrielle after being bailed by Lord Bracadale until sentencing on January 26. Senior legal sources say he could be facing five years in jail. Sheridan also faces a race to save his family from homelessness.
He faces the prospect of an appeal by the News of the World against his successful 2006 defamation action, in which denied claims he was a serial adulterer who cheated on Gail at swingers’ parties. The newspaper will seek to reclaim legal costs of around s500,000.
Sheridan signed over his Glasgow house to wife Gail in 2006 to avoid being made homeless if he lost his case. Had he lost, he would have been liable for legal costs and facing bankruptcy.
His home would have been sold to help pay the cash.
The couple bought the end-terrace house in Cardonald together for s100,500 in 2000. Legal papers lodged on July 6, 2006, just days into the trial, show the house being moved into Gail’s sole ownership.
The transfer was made under the legal terms “Love, Favour & Affection”. However, Sheridan would need to avoid bankruptcy for five years following the transfer to keep the house from creditors.
If the newspaper’s appeal is heard, and Sheridan loses, before July this year, he could be forced to sell the house. Bankruptcy would also disqualify him from being an MSP, shattering any hopes Sheridan has of returning to Holyrood.
On Thursday, the jury at the High Court in Glasgow found Sheridan guilty by a majority of a single perjury charge broken down into five allegations.
He was convicted of lying in the 2006 court case by saying he did not have a sexual relationship with SSP party activist Katrine Trolle. Another of his lies under oath was to say he did not visit Cupid’s swingers’ club in Manchester with Trolle, News of the World sex columnist Anvar Khan, brother-in-law Andy McFarlane and footballer pal Gary Clark.
He was also convicted of lying by claiming he did not admit to his sex club visits at an SSP meeting in 2004. Fol lowing the verdict, Sheridan’s solicitor, Amar Anwar, read a statement on his client’s behalf outside the court. After this was read out, Gail said: “Our family and our real friends, our real friends, have stood by us. I have and will always stand by Tommy.”
The court case is estimated to have cost between s2million and s3million. It was claimed during Sheridan’s defence that the police inquiry had cost s1.5million. Sheridan is unlikely to face censure for his Facebook comments.
A senior legal source said: “The judge is unlikely to take anything on Facebook into account. He will probably recognise that although the comments are accessible to the public, they are distinguishable from public comment.” The dramatic 12-week-tr ia l was Scotland’s longest-ever perjury case. During the trial, Sheridan claimed there had been a plot to depose him as SSP leader by rivals. Sixteen of the 21 people at an emergency meeting of the SSP told the trial he confessed to visiting a swingers’ club.
Katrine Trolle, meanwhile, gave details of eight alleged encounters with the former MSP. Sex columnist Anvar Khan testified she had a long affair with Sheridan, including when he was married. She admitted she visited Cupid’s too.
In his closing speech, Sheridan spoke for an astonishing five hours and appeared to choke back tears as he spoke about Gail and his daughter. After the jury found Sheridan guilty, Lord Bracadale told him: “You have been convicted of the serious offence of perjury and must return to court expecting to begin a prison sentence.”
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2010/12/26/disgraced-politician-tommy-sheridan-insists-he-will-fight-on-despite-facing-jail-86908-22807721/
John Meehan. I suppose left wing tabloid papers would not use unethical means to obtain a story. Tommy did manage to give his Christmas message via the Mirror Group, Scottish Sunday Mail. Tommy did do a column for this group.
dont fall man dont fall
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As a witness three times over I am offended that I am being referred to as a liar. I am not and not even Sheridan himself came up with any reason why I would lie in the Court of Session, in the high Court, here and everywhere else. He suggested I didn’t like him – which is true but hardly motivation to lie about him in court on three occasions, is it? Sheridan created the fantasy of us having a plot against him because he was not brave enough to do the right thing – either confess or shut up. The whole debacle has been a complete disgrace.
Sadly Sheridan was defeated this is nothing to celebrate, in fact it is horrible.
It is not true that we believed that Sheridan was motivated by power and greed!! Many of us were shocked to hear his revelations in 2004 but more shocked to hear his prefered course of action. We were right to be shocked because the rest of the story turned into a nightmare.
I don’t care if people don’t believe me but my issue is the defeat of Sheridan has left a bad mark on ALL socialists and left both here in Scotland and further afield.
It is unlikely that Tommy Sheridan sued the News of the World for the money. It is also unlikely that he did it not knowing that if he had chosen to duck his head all the attention would die down. Tommy Sheridan has a right to privacy like everyone else has – was this not the real issue ?
If a man had exposed personal details of a woman – explicit photographs and stories, tape recordings, then she would probably be able to claim harrassment, distress, and she would probably be able to sue.
No woman that testified in the case said that she had done anything that she did not want to do and some did this knowing who he was and knowing that he was married. Some of the testimony indicated that women had profited later by selling personal details about Tommy to the press.
If it was a woman who had been in this position would everyone have reacted differently and said that that she had been exploited ?
A recent NOW report includes the story that a woman had an affair for years with Tommy and she makes mention of how he never took her out and never bought her a present. A photo she provided has him posing in a basque and high heels for her.
The same story in the NOW included how the woman reported about how Tommy “panicked” when he thought that CCTV might have caught them kissing in a car when they first met up.
A lot of the charges were dropped during the trial, it looks like Tommy had the right to objected to at least some of what was in the NOW reports.