Starring Neil Anderson
An original Acting Strange Theatre Co podcast play by Campsie Branch member, Neil Scott
Showing posts with label tommy sheridan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tommy sheridan. Show all posts
Tuesday, 28 August 2012
Bread and Roses
The Rise and fall of a lefty icon...
Starring Neil Anderson
An original Acting Strange Theatre Co podcast play by Campsie Branch member, Neil Scott
Starring Neil Anderson
An original Acting Strange Theatre Co podcast play by Campsie Branch member, Neil Scott
Tuesday, 27 March 2012
Book seeks middle ground on Sheridan
Tommy Sheridan: From Hero to Zero?: A Political Biography by Gregor Gall
review by SSP Campsie's Allan Green
Gregor Gall’s Tommy Sheridan from Hero to Zero?: a political biography of Tommy Sheridan aims to present “a study of the person, the personality and his politics and the dialectics between them”. Gregor claims “Putting together the voluminous interviews, the personal observation and the various secondary sources means that this biography comes as close as it (sic) possible in terms of source materials to being a definitive and authoritative biography as possible.”
Hero to Zero? is certainly well-researched, with exhaustive references and footnotes, and it contains a lot of useful information. It is also an honest attempt to analyse and understand why “Tommy brought himself down not over NoW’s allegations about his personal life but over the way he chose to deal with these. He was, thus, convicted of perjury about telling lies in court about visiting Cupids and having a sexual relationship with Katrine Trolle, and not about visiting Cupids itself or having a sexual relationship with Katrine Trolle.”
Gregor Gall started his interviews and research for this book prior to ‘Tommygate’; his description for the period after the 9 November 2004 SSP Executive Committee meeting asked Sheridan to step down as party convener when Sheridan chose to use the courts, to coin Alan McCombes’ phrase, and build a ‘tower of lies’. Without Tommygate, the book would have been ready by late 2005 and it would, of course, have been a very different book. The consequent change of direction is perhaps a factor in explaining why the resulting work often appears disjointed and even inconsistent.
The strengths of this biography are in the coverage of Sheridan’s early life, his formative influences and his political development from the anti-poll tax campaign, through his years in Glasgow Council to the early years of the Scottish Parliament. Hero to Zero? also deals with the dynamics of the rise of the SSP as a collective campaigning party and the positive and crucial role played by Sheridan at this time.
When considering the opening of Tommygate, Hero to Zero? is mistaken when it implies there was an agreement that Sheridan could take out the libel action from the time he stood down as party convener. Sheridan was certainly asked to stand down for intending to go to the courts and lie. However, the party leadership repeatedly tried to dissuade him from pursuing his action in the courts.
Gregor’s interpretation of Sheridan, the ‘Person, Persona and Personality’ will appear to many, myself included, as unsubstantiated and even simply wrong. Gregor strongly argues against the position that “..Tommy had brought himself down through his own vanity, arrogance and delusion. While there is evidence of vanity, .., it was not this or his alleged arrogance or delusion which explains Tommy’s actions.”
Instead, Hero to Zero? argues that Sheridan’s “faulty political calculation” over Tommygate was a consequence of him “.. making his destiny synonymous with that of socialism in Scotland ..”. Gregor does highlight indications of this as a possible motivator for Sheridan in the early passages of the book dealing with the pre-Tommygate period. Yet, even the evidence presented in the book for the Tommygate period just doesn’t back him up. In Gregor’s own words “… between 2004 and 2010 he (Sheridan) spent more time fighting the left than he did the right.”
Gregor argues, with hindsight, that the SSP should have spiked Sheridan’s guns in November 2004, publishing the Executive Committee minutes detailing why Sheridan was asked to stand down as convener. With hindsight, few will argue with this and there is certainly a lesson to be learned by the party in this regard. At the time, however, most party members, myself included, felt that in 2004 Sheridan was still motivated, at least in part, by promoting the socialist cause. It was felt that it would be best if Sheridan could be dissuaded from continuing with his kamikaze court actions. Indeed, Sheridan even told Alan McCombes that he would drop the legal action if NoTW did not back down. In November 2004, there was probably no one who imagined that Sheridan would, within 18 months, in pursuit of his flawed legal action, devote most of his political energy towards attacking the SSP with such ferocity and venom.
Hero to Zero? catalogues many accounts of Sheridan’s sexist behaviour, asks if he is a misogynist and then leaves the question hanging. The emphasis is on accounts of Sheridan as a ‘sexual predator’ during the Militant era. Here, Gregor does not draw on material documented elsewhere in the book that could be pertinent; such as Sheridan’s declarations of intent to ‘destroy’ women who he had a sexual relationship with but who refused to perjure themselves in court on his behalf. It also ignores the public humiliation that they suffered at the hands of Sheridan over 2 court cases.
When the book considers the question of the ‘cult of the personality’ around Sheridan it again concentrates on the pre-Tommygate period. Gregor says it is doubtful if Sheridan himself consciously nurtured this status at this time. Instead, the emphasis is on the “heavy responsibility” of the SSP and its forerunners in promoting Sheridan in what is described in the book as “a bargain with the devil”. There is unlikely to be much controversy around these points as, for the past 6 years or so, it has been widely acknowledged in the party that it made a mistake in promoting so much of the socialist message through one individual.
Yet, the biography does not seriously examine the ‘cult of the personality’ around Sheridan from the split in the SSP onwards. There is a recognition that most of Tommy’s supporters know he was lying throughout Tommygate. The biography details how, time after time, Sheridan bounced his followers into a course of action that even they did not initially support. Even amongst those who went on to form Solidarity, outside his immediate circle of family and friends, few initially believed that Sheridan should take out his libel action. Almost none of Sheridan’s supporters wanted to split the SSP but they still followed when a split was declared by Sheridan. Gregor explains this by saying “..his supporters thought they were defending the Tommy of old, not the Tommy of new.” Gregor concludes that the biography has “pursued a middle way” as it is neither for nor against Sheridan. He states that he is adopting the dialectical method by recognising Sheridan as being simultaneously both hero and zero. This conclusion does not seem to sufficiently take cognisance of much of the evidence in the book that, with Tommygate, and in particular after Sheridan’s open attacks on the SSP from May 2006 onwards, the balance between Sheridan being motivated by actions for the benefit of the socialist movement and by being motivated by narrow self-interest, decisively and qualitatively changed.
(this article originally appeared in the Scottish Socialist Voice HERE)
Hero to Zero? is certainly well-researched, with exhaustive references and footnotes, and it contains a lot of useful information. It is also an honest attempt to analyse and understand why “Tommy brought himself down not over NoW’s allegations about his personal life but over the way he chose to deal with these. He was, thus, convicted of perjury about telling lies in court about visiting Cupids and having a sexual relationship with Katrine Trolle, and not about visiting Cupids itself or having a sexual relationship with Katrine Trolle.”
Gregor Gall started his interviews and research for this book prior to ‘Tommygate’; his description for the period after the 9 November 2004 SSP Executive Committee meeting asked Sheridan to step down as party convener when Sheridan chose to use the courts, to coin Alan McCombes’ phrase, and build a ‘tower of lies’. Without Tommygate, the book would have been ready by late 2005 and it would, of course, have been a very different book. The consequent change of direction is perhaps a factor in explaining why the resulting work often appears disjointed and even inconsistent.
The strengths of this biography are in the coverage of Sheridan’s early life, his formative influences and his political development from the anti-poll tax campaign, through his years in Glasgow Council to the early years of the Scottish Parliament. Hero to Zero? also deals with the dynamics of the rise of the SSP as a collective campaigning party and the positive and crucial role played by Sheridan at this time.
When considering the opening of Tommygate, Hero to Zero? is mistaken when it implies there was an agreement that Sheridan could take out the libel action from the time he stood down as party convener. Sheridan was certainly asked to stand down for intending to go to the courts and lie. However, the party leadership repeatedly tried to dissuade him from pursuing his action in the courts.
Gregor’s interpretation of Sheridan, the ‘Person, Persona and Personality’ will appear to many, myself included, as unsubstantiated and even simply wrong. Gregor strongly argues against the position that “..Tommy had brought himself down through his own vanity, arrogance and delusion. While there is evidence of vanity, .., it was not this or his alleged arrogance or delusion which explains Tommy’s actions.”
Instead, Hero to Zero? argues that Sheridan’s “faulty political calculation” over Tommygate was a consequence of him “.. making his destiny synonymous with that of socialism in Scotland ..”. Gregor does highlight indications of this as a possible motivator for Sheridan in the early passages of the book dealing with the pre-Tommygate period. Yet, even the evidence presented in the book for the Tommygate period just doesn’t back him up. In Gregor’s own words “… between 2004 and 2010 he (Sheridan) spent more time fighting the left than he did the right.”
Gregor argues, with hindsight, that the SSP should have spiked Sheridan’s guns in November 2004, publishing the Executive Committee minutes detailing why Sheridan was asked to stand down as convener. With hindsight, few will argue with this and there is certainly a lesson to be learned by the party in this regard. At the time, however, most party members, myself included, felt that in 2004 Sheridan was still motivated, at least in part, by promoting the socialist cause. It was felt that it would be best if Sheridan could be dissuaded from continuing with his kamikaze court actions. Indeed, Sheridan even told Alan McCombes that he would drop the legal action if NoTW did not back down. In November 2004, there was probably no one who imagined that Sheridan would, within 18 months, in pursuit of his flawed legal action, devote most of his political energy towards attacking the SSP with such ferocity and venom.
Hero to Zero? catalogues many accounts of Sheridan’s sexist behaviour, asks if he is a misogynist and then leaves the question hanging. The emphasis is on accounts of Sheridan as a ‘sexual predator’ during the Militant era. Here, Gregor does not draw on material documented elsewhere in the book that could be pertinent; such as Sheridan’s declarations of intent to ‘destroy’ women who he had a sexual relationship with but who refused to perjure themselves in court on his behalf. It also ignores the public humiliation that they suffered at the hands of Sheridan over 2 court cases.
When the book considers the question of the ‘cult of the personality’ around Sheridan it again concentrates on the pre-Tommygate period. Gregor says it is doubtful if Sheridan himself consciously nurtured this status at this time. Instead, the emphasis is on the “heavy responsibility” of the SSP and its forerunners in promoting Sheridan in what is described in the book as “a bargain with the devil”. There is unlikely to be much controversy around these points as, for the past 6 years or so, it has been widely acknowledged in the party that it made a mistake in promoting so much of the socialist message through one individual.
Yet, the biography does not seriously examine the ‘cult of the personality’ around Sheridan from the split in the SSP onwards. There is a recognition that most of Tommy’s supporters know he was lying throughout Tommygate. The biography details how, time after time, Sheridan bounced his followers into a course of action that even they did not initially support. Even amongst those who went on to form Solidarity, outside his immediate circle of family and friends, few initially believed that Sheridan should take out his libel action. Almost none of Sheridan’s supporters wanted to split the SSP but they still followed when a split was declared by Sheridan. Gregor explains this by saying “..his supporters thought they were defending the Tommy of old, not the Tommy of new.” Gregor concludes that the biography has “pursued a middle way” as it is neither for nor against Sheridan. He states that he is adopting the dialectical method by recognising Sheridan as being simultaneously both hero and zero. This conclusion does not seem to sufficiently take cognisance of much of the evidence in the book that, with Tommygate, and in particular after Sheridan’s open attacks on the SSP from May 2006 onwards, the balance between Sheridan being motivated by actions for the benefit of the socialist movement and by being motivated by narrow self-interest, decisively and qualitatively changed.
Sunday, 28 August 2011
Red Pepper Review of "Downfall"
Liz Davies, chair of the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers and a barrister specialising in housing and homelessness law, has reviewed Alan McCombes book on the Sheridan affair for Red Pepper.
Review HERE
Review HERE
Sunday, 12 June 2011
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT TOMMY
Here, ALAN McCOMBES - the author and Sheridan's former comrade in the Scottish Socialist Party - explains why, as the jailed MSP continues to proclaim his innocence, the extent of Sheridan's lies had to be laid bare once and for all.
It is a book never wanted to write and one that I wish I never had to write.
The story of Downfall is just too raw, too sordid, too dispiriting.
Much of Scotland was fascinated by the dramatic twists and turns of the Tommy Sheridan saga, from its first stirrings in a small office in the back streets of Glasgow to its sensational finale six years later in the High Court of Judiciary.
But for those involved - personally and emotionally - it was a sickening and destructive spectacle. Lifelong friendships were torn asunder. Some people suffered emotional and psychological trauma. Good people were vilified and demonised.
They included the likes of former Sunday Mail columnist, Rosie Kane, one of the warmest and most compassionate people I've ever known.
For years on end, she and her female colleagues were portrayed in the media as a cruel gaggle of stony-hearted witches who had destroyed one of Scotland's favourite sons.
Or people like Keith Baldassara, denounced by Tommy "a scab and a rat" for refusing to lie in court.
Keith had spent years up to his neck in human misery dealing with the MSPs casework on the ground, from dampness and debt to crime and anti-social behaviour
When Tommy received the plaudits and the 'Thank You' cards when the problems were solved, Keith never complained.
His loyalty was as deep as the Clyde, but he was not prepared to stand by while Tommy leapt over the edge, with the rest of his party chained to him.
Worst of all, the most successful left wing socialist party in Europe was reduced almost to smoking ruins.
At its height 150,000 had voted for the SSP. Thousands had sacrificed their time, money and energy to build a movement that, for a time, gave a voice to the people that the mainstream parties had long abandoned – the poor, the sick, the elderly, lone parents, the low paid, unemployed, council tenants.
So Downfall was no pleasure to write but a story that had to be told as a warning and an explanation of that betrayal in all its gory and complex detail.
This book might not have been necessary if Tommy Sheridan had been brave enough, even at the eleventh hour, to put up his hands and take responsibility for his own actions.
Instead, aided and abetted by a noisy little band of supporters, he continues to claim he is the victim of a monstrous frame-up.
That does a grave disservice to those who have suffered from real miscarriages of justice.
And it leaves a chill cloud still lingering over those who have been falsely accused of perjury, forgery and perverting the course of justice as part of a fanatical anti-Tommy plot.
If this book can do anything, I hope it can deconstruct the Sheridan fantasy by offering a blow-by-blow, insider's account of exactly what happened behind the scenes over these sad, sorry years.
This is the truth.The rest is a lie.
Some people have accused me of cashing in. They are wrong. This book wasn't written for money - authors are paid just eight per cent of a book's cover price.
Even if Downfall were to be a best-seller in Scotland, I could have spent the last two years more lucratively pouring pints in a bar.
Nor was I motivated by revenge. If anything, Downfall challenges the idea that Tommy Sheridan alone can be held responsible for the pain and destruction of the past six years.
Many people in politics, the legal system and the celebrity showbiz circuit cheered him along every step on his road to destruction.
In many cases, their complicity was based on ignorance of the facts. But without encouragement Tommy would have been isolated and incapable of inflicting damage on such a scale.
I know many people will be uncomfortable with this book because it challenges their own role in these events but I make no apologies for
naming names.
I have always believed in redemption. But before there can be reconciliation, there must first come truth.
Downfall will, I hope, set the record staright once and forall.
Perhaps then, we can move on.
Sunday Mail 12 June 2011
Friday, 28 January 2011
Guest blogger - Rioting, Sex, and Hypocrisy
by Dave Coull
(Dave would like to make it clear he is not a member of the SSP, never has been, and has nothing personal against Tommy Sheridan)
Regarding the sentencing of Tommy Sheridan for perjury, somebody remarked that "18 months soft imprisonment seems lenient"
I’m not going to get into a Daily-Mail-style complaint about “lenient” sentencing, from my point of view prisons are the universities of crime and they do more harm than good. I think it’s an unhappy thing that Tommy Sheridan has been sent to prison. Yes, of course, Rupert Murdoch and his pals in the police and the establishment are enemies of the working class; that I would assume from the start. But the schemes of these enemies of the working class were made easier by the fact that Tommy Sheridan is a liar and a hypocrite. If he had just admitted from the start that he was a bit of a swinger, folk would have forgiven him. But it's much harder to forgive being told a pack of lies.
"X" wrote "Tommy Sheridan is someone who i have been familiar with since the anti-poll tax days. I was never a member of the anti-poll tax federation but i did actively protest against the tax from the very start. The reason i never became a member of the anti-poll tax federation was Tommy Sheridan."
From my point of view, although I was involved in the “federation” from the very start, nevertheless, the anti-poll-tax movement was more than just the “federation”. However, let’s be clear about this. First, there were local anti-poll tax GROUPS . I know, I was involved in starting one of the first, without any help at all from Tommy Sheridan. Later on , these anti-poll-tax GROUPS got together and formed anti-poll-tax federations. We got together with a couple of groups in Dundee and formed the Tayside Anti Poll Tax Federation. Then later still the Scottish Anti Poll Tax Federation was formed.
But let's be clear about this; the initiative for resisting the poll tax didn't come from the APT federations. Rather, the APT federations were formed because there was resistance. And I can remember the very first time I heard the name “Tommy Sheridan”. We had sent 3 delegates to some anti-poll-tax gathering in Edinburgh. They came back and told us about various things that had been agreed at that meeting. "Oh, and some young student called Sheridan is supposed to be acting as a kind of co-ordinator". But the appointment of this young student as a sort of co-ordinator wasn’t seen as being any big deal, and it certainly wasn’t seen as him being our “Leader”.
The myth that "Tommy Sheridan led the resistance" is one which has been spread by folk who were not involved in the campaign, and of course Sheridan himself and his pals have not been too particular about countering the myth. But it IS a myth.
Not only did we organise local demonstrations (with no assistance from Mr Sheridan), and take part in national ones, we organised people to turn out to physically stop sherriff's officers from carrying out poindings, organising phone-trees to contact people at very short notice for this purpose, and that sort of thing.
Also, as early as June 1988 I was writing to friends and contacts in England urging them to support our campaign, and to prepare for non-payment in England when the poll tax was introduced there. I presume folk like Tommy Sheridan and co were also contacting their Militant Tendency colleagues in England, saying "get on with organising against the poll tax down there, because if you don't, them bloody anarchists will be leading the movement". I even know a member of the SNP who spoke against the poll tax at a local public meeting in a small town in England months before the tax was introduced there.
It was because we were resisting so successfully in Scotland there was an anti-poll-tax movement in England. If we had failed to resist the poll tax in Scotland, that would have been it, Maggie would have won. Folk in England would have said "What's the point, the Scots have given up, we can't beat Maggie". But we didn't fail, and we didn't give up. We were able to show opponents of the poll tax in England and Wales a successful, organised, mass campaign of non-payment that they could join in with.
I was one of a number of Scottish anti-poll-tax protesters who went down to London for the big protest there on the 31st of March 1990. At the demonstration, folk were congratulating anybody with a Scottish accent on our fight. I made a point of singing, loudly, to that well-known samba tune, "We're STILL no payin the poll tax". The mood of the demo was optimistic BECAUSE we in Scotland had been running a campaign of non-payment for a year.
And yes, that demonstration did turn into a riot. And Tommy and the other Militant leaders completely misjudged the mood of the public over that. I remember getting into a taxi in London, the London taxi-driver told me there were certain parts he couldn’t take me to because of the rioting, but then he added “Mind you, I think it’s great that they are giving Maggie a bloody nose”. And that reaction was typical. The wider public LIKED the rioting.
And Tommy Sheridan was asked about it on the television news and said that “The Federation” would be taking action against these rioters who had “disrupted” a peaceful demonstration. Within a few hours, he had realised his blunder, and he never repeated that remark, or did anything about it. In fact, he and his pals deny he ever said anything like that. But I saw that TV news broadcast, I didn’t imagine it, Tommy Sheridan condemned people who were actively fighting against the poll tax.
"X" wrote "Tommy Sheridan's crimes go much further than perjury."
Indeed they do. I think he should acknowledge this, and stop lying to himself, to his wife and family, to his colleagues, and to everybody else. The first step in redemption is to acknowledge the sin..........
Oh, and the lesson for today's working class rebels? Putting your faith in "Leaders" turns YOU into followers, and that's a very bad way to do things. It makes them big-headed and it makes you too easily mainipulated and it practically ensures that they will let you down. Free men and women don't need Leaders. In fact, there's a far better chance of revolt succeeding without them.
Dave Coull was born in 1941, and left school to start full time work at the age of 15. He has worked at many different jobs, always for a weekly wage rather than a salary, mostly in the building industry. Dave has been active in various campaigns but has always avoided joining any political party (unless you count anarchists as a party). While acting as a site steward for building workers in London, Dave was sacked, which led to a (successful) unofficial strike by his fellow workers for his reinstatement. Nowadays Dave has slowed down a bit and tends to feel it’s mostly up to younger folk to carry on the fight.
Dave Coull was born in 1941, and left school to start full time work at the age of 15. He has worked at many different jobs, always for a weekly wage rather than a salary, mostly in the building industry. Dave has been active in various campaigns but has always avoided joining any political party (unless you count anarchists as a party). While acting as a site steward for building workers in London, Dave was sacked, which led to a (successful) unofficial strike by his fellow workers for his reinstatement. Nowadays Dave has slowed down a bit and tends to feel it’s mostly up to younger folk to carry on the fight.
Thursday, 23 December 2010
SSP Statement on Sheridan Conviction
The Scottish Socialist Party have released a statement on today's news. Read it HERE
Wednesday, 27 October 2010
The Sheridan Trial
Some people have requested updates on the trial against a former convenor of the SSP, Tommy Sheridan.
The Latest on the trial can be found on the BBC website HERE
or on a blog written by a member of the SWP (a left wing micro group who helped Tommy set up "Solidarity" after it became apparent he would not win back the leadership of the SSP) HERE
The Latest on the trial can be found on the BBC website HERE
or on a blog written by a member of the SWP (a left wing micro group who helped Tommy set up "Solidarity" after it became apparent he would not win back the leadership of the SSP) HERE
Friday, 4 May 2007
From Campsie Branch Organisers
Well done all of the SSP comrades who worked their socks off during this election. Unfortunately this was not our election. Changes in the electoral system and a surge of votes for the SNP have meant the SSP as well as other small parties, have been squeezed out.
A year is a long, long time in politics. A year ago we were riding high and had ambitions for more seats and for a plethora of council seats. And a year ago we in
The verdict? Tommy’s foray into the courts and his subsequent slandering of SSP colleagues has meant the decimation of the left in this years elections. This is a disgrace, and all of those who surrounded and advised, or at worst encouraged this man should be disgraced in the eyes of the left.
The only way is up, comrades, and we should ensure the socialist message is still on the streets for the next four years.
The SSP is a party of integrity, and we will be back into the Parliament, though the Parliament should not be our priority. Our priority is working to help people and facilitate the Socialist message.
We have work to do – and that work starts now.
Neil Scott
Pamela Page
Campsie Branch SSP Organisers
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