Sex, Socialism, Lies & Videotape
[A quick rundown to bring non-British readers up to speed: member of the Scottish Parliament, Tommy Sheridan is the former leader of the Scottish Socialist party, who resigned from it to ‘spend more time with his family’. The Murdoch-owned tabloid the News of The World accused Sheridan of resigning for having been an active participant at swingers’ clubs and having admitted it in an internal party meeting, a meeting the paper alleged it had on tape.
Sheridan sued for libel and won, in the process branding over a dozen loyal SSP members liars and scabs and denying the existence of any such taped admission, despite the evidence of 16 people who said they’d heard him say those very things. The party split: Sheridan now heads his own faction called Solidarity. Further allegations of perjury have surfaced and he’s still being investigated by the police. Now read on.]
Another reason from The Scotsman, (if more were needed), why Tommy Sheridan is a liability to socialism:
Coming to a screen near you
EDDIE BARNESBY ANY standards, it is an astonishing admission. “All of that muck that could be raked on me as an individual, of course it is the truth,” says Tommy Sheridan. “What I said in the course of my trial – garbage. Socialists and socialism – let’s face it, a disaster. What we stand for – garbage. Socialism – garbage.”
Is this what Sheridan’s many enemies have been waiting for – sensational new evidence that the former SSP leader lied in court when confronted with allegations of adultery and hypocrisy? The incendiary quotes come from an audio tape currently available for download on YouTube, the wildly successful internet site sold earlier this month to Google for ?883m. Placed there by an anonymous mischief-maker, the download is a fake, created by splicing together some of Sheridan’s public pronouncements to achieve the desired effect. [My emphasis]
Those intent on humiliating the embattled Sheridan have not stopped there. Another spoof video takes footage of his mother Alice performing an excruciating version of the song ‘Impossible Dream’ at the launch of her son’s new Solidarity party, and mixes it with montages of Sheridan engaged in a fight with his successor and now hated rival Colin Fox. It has so far attracted more than 3,000 hits. In fact, Sheridan has his own little corner in YouTube: as well as these two spoofs there are genuine clips of his more celebrated speeches, including the one delivered after winning his libel action against the News of the World earlier this year.
This kind of public vilification will continue until such time as the latest perjury investigations are concluded (though probably not even then).
Personally, I think Sheridan lied through his teeth, the not guilty verdict and subsequent media hoohah notwithstanding – but right now his guilt or innocence of perjury is rather a moot point. Sheridan’s dog and pony show makes all socialists look like petty, venal, backstabbing infighters by association. With the upcoming appeal by the News of The World and the continuing investigations ny Lothian & Borders police, he continues to make all Scottish socialists, whether pro- or anti-Sheridan, look very dodgy indeed.
Now it seems he’s working with Channel 4 on a film about the case. No doubt he’ll try to spin the story as the braw wee working class fighter taking on the big bad Murdoch press, rather than the gross betrayal of his family, his party and his comrades it actually was. There certainly was malign intent by the NoW, but Sheridan has shown himself to be economical with the truth at best and an egotistical liar at worst.
What makes me really angry is the public shame at being branded liars that he brought on the women in his party, who understandably were not happy at being lied to and told him so. Here’s what one of the witnesses labelled a perjurer in court had to say after the verdict:
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: too many men calling themselves socialists have hijacked the movement and the work of thousands of committed leftists, many of them women, purely for the greater glory of their own massive egos. Blair is one, John Reid another and Sheridan is too – but he’s worse, because he dragged his party and its members down with him deliberately to save his own skin.
Sheridan should return to private life post-haste, stick to his tanning booth nd his burgeoning media career and stop putting his own private ambitions ahead of the cause.
Read more: UK, Scotland, Socialism, SSP, Perjury, Tommy Sheridan, Video spoofs, YouTube
