Tommy Sheridan

[faceless]

SMITH: GLOVES ARE ON
Gord up for Tommy fight ...but SFA could KO it
By Craig Mcdonald
www.dailyrecord.co.uk

Gordon Smith is preparing to face the former MSP in a celebrity boxing bout in Glasgow in a fortnight. It's thought the SFA could put the boot into the charity fight. But as he was officially unveiled as the new SFA chief executive yesterday, Smith said he was still keen to get his gloves on. Smith, 52, has been nicknamed "Pretty Boy" for the fight, while Solidarity party leader and sunbed fan Sheridan has been dubbed "The Musketeer - Dark Tan Yin". Smith said: "It's on. That's the situation at the moment.I will have to take advice on the matter - but at the moment it's on."

Sheridan, 42, has vowed to take revenge on Smith during their bout, the second time they've stepped in to the ring together. The politician ended up with a bloody nose after losing to Smith during a fight in Glasgow four years ago. Sheridan said: "I lost the last fight on points, which was unfair. I think Gordon would say that too. I deserved to win. Now I'm out to make things even."

Former Rangers and Brighton striker Smith has given up his work as a television pundit and football agent to take the top job. He replaces David Taylor, who has taken up the post of general secretary of UEFA. Smith's powers include being involved in hiring and firing future Scotland managers.

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This Smith guy is the same one that Galloway has mentioned in tonight's show as having said that he didn't think that the words of a song that has the line 'up to our knees in Fenian blood' was offensive to Catholics...

So come on Tommy - knock the daft twat out!

[faceless]

Sheridan sacked his lawyer, then asked him back for appeal
By Paul Hutcheon

TOMMY SHERIDAN tried to re-hire the top lawyer he sacked in the middle of his court battle against News of the World. But Richard Keen QC, who briefly led the charge against the Murdoch red-top for Sheridan during last year's libel trial, turned down the request. The lawyer has broken his silence on the case by saying his sacking was a "political move" that worked "very well" for the former MSP. The comments are the first time Keen, dubbed "the rottweiler" in legal circles, has spoken about his involvement in the Sheridan trial.

The former Solidarity MSP sued the Sunday tabloid after allegations he was an adulterer who cheated on his wife with a sex worker. Sheridan was awarded £200,000 in damages during last summer's high-profile trial, but only after sacking his counsel and representing himself. The newspaper is appealing the verdict. Keen represented the tanned socialist in the first week of the case, but was absent thereafter because of commitments in the House of Lords. A mistake made by Keen's junior counsel, Graeme Henderson, prompted an "incandescent" Sheridan to sack his entire legal team in the trial's second week.

But the Sunday Herald can reveal that, after Sheridan's victory, the politician's legal advisers asked Keen to represent him in the appeal. Speaking to the Sunday Herald, Keen said: "It is true that an approach by his solicitors was made. I didn't believe it was professionally appropriate to take up the case." On the ex-MSP's decision to sack him and Henderson, the QC said: "Tommy Sheridan and his advisers took a very political move and it worked very well for him." Despite the experience of being taken off the case, he added that Sheridan losing his Holyrood seat was a blow for politics. He was good for the Scottish parliament. He had convictions," he said.

On what it was like defending a politician against whom sexual allegations had been made, he quipped: "I take a slightly Frenchified approach to all that." But Keen was more reticent on the incident that caused Sheridan to sack his legal team. Both he and Henderson were dismissed after the junior counsel wrongly accused a witness of having a conviction for fraud. Keen said it had been a "cock up" and a "pity", but declined to be drawn further.

Meanwhile, the Sunday Herald understands the police investigation into last summer's trial will not be completed in the short-term. One source close to the investigation said officers for Lothian and Borders police still had to interview dozens of people. The insider said it was likely detectives could still be questioning witnesses in October, which would take the investigation into its second year. Officers are investigating whether perjury was committed during the trial, after jurors heard contradictory evidence in the courtroom. They are looking at the possibility of several charges, including: perjury, conspiracy to commit perjury and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

Detectives have followed up leads in Jersey and Manchester, as well as quizzing staff at hotels in Glasgow and Aberdeen where sexual activity was alleged to have taken place. Police are in the process of interviewing senior figures in the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP), which Sheridan used to lead before quitting the organisation, over the trial evidence. It was reported yesterday that Sheridan's wife Gail, who gave evidence during the trial, was also being probed by police. Sheridan was unavailable for comment last night.

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This was from last week's Sunday Herald, but I only just saw it. Not exactly the best story to be revealed, but it's interesting apart from the 'facts' that the journalist (and by dint the editor) used the term 'tanned socialist' to describe Sheridan. What's that got to do with anything? You don't need to be a capitalist to use a sun-bed!

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Police find SSP official who ‘fled in fear of his life’
By Paul Hutcheon

A FORMER Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) official who fled the country after talking to a newspaper about Tommy Sheridan's private life has been tracked down by police investigating last year's defamation case. Duncan Rowan, a one-time regional organiser for the SSP, has been questioned by detectives as part of their inquiries. Rowan, who has settled in England, is said to be convinced his life is at risk because of the role he played in airing allegations about Sheridan's sex life.

The interview comes as police investigate evidence given in last summer's court battle between Sheridan, former leader of the SSP, and the News Of The World. Sheridan sued the tabloid after it alleged he was an adulterer who had cheated on his wife with a sex worker. A jury heard five weeks of salacious claims, including allegations of other affairs, but backed the former MSP and awarded him £200,000 in damages. However, the trial was marked by contradictory evidence, such as when up to a dozen of Sheridan's former SSP comrades claimed he had confessed to visiting a swingers club in Manchester. The disputed claims prompted Lothian and Borders police to launch an investigation into whether lies were told during the court hearing.

Detectives have since ploughed through the evidence in a year-long inquiry, interviewing dozens of witnesses and visiting locations as diverse as Manchester, Aberdeen and Jersey. The Sunday Herald understands that one of thoses questioned is Rowan, the SSP activist who disappeared in November 2004 after being caught talking to the News Of The World about Sheridan's private life.

Police tracked down Rowan to an undisclosed location in England and quizzed him about any information he could have for their inquiry. Rowan made an appearance during last year's trial, not in person, but through the transcript of a conversation he had with a News Of The World reporter in late 2004. The tabloid's original accusation about Sheridan having an affair with Fiona McGuire, a call girl, was accompanied by a taped conversation with Rowan in which he warned the newspaper off the allegations about the former prostitute. He instead fed the Murdoch red-top the name of another woman, Katrine Trolle, allegedly involved with the former SSP leader. Rowan fled Scotland after the newspaper printed his claims.

The court transcript of Rowan's comments had him saying: "So far as I am aware, she is in Dundee. She was at Aberdeen Uni as well. She is from the continent somewhere." On Sheridan, the transcript read: "I am a socialist. I am a Marxist. Leaders come and go. You create them, build them up, you get rid of them. I am not prepared to see folk who have nothing to do with this, some woman McGuire who has made serious mistakes in the past or who is too vulnerable to look after herself, pay the price for whatever he's, Sheridan, been up to."

Finding Rowan, said one source close to the investigation, showed how serious Lothian and Borders were taking the perjury investigation. Detectives are said to be looking at the possibility of several charges including: perjury, conspiracy to commit perjury and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. A spokesman for Lothian and Borders police said: "We have not and will not make any further comment on the case."

SOURCE

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This is from today's Sunday Herald... it's always easier to attack someone when they're no longer an elected official eh?

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Sheridan: Socialist, politician, celebrity ... chat show host?
Glasgow’s most famous leftie takes on the capital.
By Stephen Phelan

VIEWED FROM the fifth row, on the openingnightofthisyear's EdinburghFringe,Tommy Sheridan's live chat show does not seem entirely a failure. There are some empty seats, but enough people have come to hear Sheridan speak, and enough of them are laughing at his bad jokes, that there is at least a convivial atmosphere. A student union debating hall makes a fine venue for a born orator, and his personalised brand of socialism - a Glaswegian combination of militancy and the banter - remains popularenoughtodrawadisproportionate number of audience members over to the capital from Scotland's bigger second city.

Edinburgh has always had problems attracting weegie neighbours to see festival shows in August, so Sheridan's might already be considered a success on that criterion. "I'm glad to see you've all got a seat," he says. "That's more than I f***ing got at the last election." This is representative of the self-deprecationtofollow,deliveredfromastage decorated on one side with a glowing sunbed panel and on the other with tabloid sandwich boards, repeating headlines from last year. "Sex-Mad Tommy". "Tommy Snorted Cocaine". "Tommy Drops His Briefs".

If any of those allegations had been proven in the courtroom, a few hundred yards from here, where Sheridan's libel case against the News Of The World ended one year ago to the day, he would not now be inviting us to laugh either at or with him. If that newspaper had yet paid him the £200,000 he was awarded in costs and damages (an appeal against what it calls a "perverse" decision will come to court in December), perhaps he wouldn't have to. "Aye," Sheridan told me at his house on Glasgow's Paisley Road West, before this Fringe debut, "but if we'd lost we would really have been in the shit."
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By "we", he meant his wife Gail, below, and possibly also his two-year-old daughter Gabrielle, neither of whom were in that morning. There was a time when I could not have expected to find Sheridan himself at home within working hours on a weekday. That time ended at 5.20am on May 4 of this year, when the ballot papers were finally, albeit defectively, counted, and showed that he had not been re-elected to his seat as MSP for Pollok.

"Many, many friends have told me that getting beat in the election was a blessing in disguise, and the truth is it maybe was. I wouldn't have chosen to give up, but Gail had been at me to do that because she was just fed up with everybody take-take-taking my time and energy. And now that I've lost the seat I do feel more sprightly. I've got the next four years at least to try other things."

The first of those things has been Sheridan's increasingly regular work as a chat show host on the radio station Talk 107. "I find it quite relaxing," he said. "And also quite ... easy. Because I was only taking half a wage as an MSP, I get more as a radio presenter than I was getting as an elected politician. You go in, you concentrate, you do your show, then you come home and hug your baby and talk to your wife."

This was not definitive proof Sheridan is no longer the voice of the working man. What working man would not accept better conditions for better wages? And empathise as he does with postal workers in their ongoing fight for the same - he said of his election defeat that "much more important than my personal feelings about it, or the political let-down, is the fact that the posties are on strike and there is nobody standing up for them in parliament" - few working men have Sheridan's bills to pay. "I didn't even know," he said, going back to the drama of last year, "that it costs £200 per day just for the court. I'm there trying to take on a multi-billion pound organisation, and I've got to fork out £200 before I can even set foot in the room. Then there's tariffs, admin charges ... "

His Fringe event, which is effectively a live version of the radio show, may help to cover these. He is not, he said, doing it for money, although neither does the show represent the same financial risk for him as it does for Fringe performers who fund their own - Sheridan is being underwritten by the comedy promoters Bound And Gagged, and his onlyworrybeforestartingwasthat audiences would expect him "to be a comedian, which I wish I was, because I absolutely admire them, but I certainly am not".

Sheridan does, however, know what he's talking about, on this subject as much as any other. That "desire to know what I'm talking about", which he first recognised in himself while arguing for or against something in a modern studies class at Glasgow's Lourdes secondary, was also the thing that made him, at his best, a rare politician. I saw him guest star in a live sketch show at a comedy venue three years ago, and he did not embarrass himself, nor betray any fear of ridicule.

"Brothers and sisters," I remember him saying, "in the new, devolved, independent socialist republic of Scotland, there's going to be a lot more laughing, and that's a fact." That republic is now even further from reality than it seemed then, and Sheridan himself has probably laughed less in the last three years than at any other period of his life.

"It's been horrible for my family," he agreed, "but it's also been a time of joy. The most important thing that's happened to me in recent years is the birth of my daughter. There is nothing like the depth of devotion that you feel towards a child. It has changed my priorities, and she is number one."

The evidence was there in his living room; the metal bust of Lenin on top of the TV now marginalised by primary-coloured toys and videos. And even when the conversation ranged across Latin America, where recent changes in government were used to illustrate his opinion that the whole world may yet turn to the left, Sheridan was never far from another mention of his wife, who he continually invoked as a kind of charm.

Like Lenin, or because of him, he does not believe in God, but Gail does, and given the way that her testimony helped to make his case last summer, it would not be surprising if she is the sole object of whatever superstitions he may still possess. Does she pray for him, I asked?

"I hope so," said Sheridan. "I know my mum does. Actually, there's a wee story there." The elder Mrs Sheridan, it seems, performed a clandestine Catholic intervention in the trial. "Unbeknown to us," he said, "when she found out what courtroom we were going to be in she sneaked in some holy water, and she swears she blessed the place to get rid of all the demons. So, she was confident that we would win."

The apocryphal version of the Sheridan story - even living and compromised folk heroes are subject to light mythologising - suggests that in winning, he lost everything else. As far as he's concerned, that might only be true if "everything" was politics, and vice versa, and for him that is no longer the case. Even so, Sheridan had analysed the recent election results in sufficient detail to explain exactly why his spectacular break from the Scottish Socialist Party - certain members testified against him in court - could not have caused the ballot-box fallout which erased the left wing from parliament.

His love of "statistics and figures and trends" has led him to "an instructive comparison" between the SSP, who dropped from six seats to zero, and the Green Party, who dropped from seven seats to two even without such implosive divisions. "This election was so polarised that people knew their only choice was to stick with Labour or give them a kicking. And, realistically, there was only one party that could give that kicking ... For the first time, Scotland has a nationalist government, and more importantly, a left of centre government. That's a much bigger picture than Tommy Sheridan losing his seat."

Tonight, when Sheridan opens the floor to questions during his chat show, nobody asks about these things. One of his guests, former Celtic star and fellow tabloid target Frank McAvennie, is asked to pick a favourite moment from his footballing days. But nobody, not even a cheeky Glaswegian, puts it to Sheridan that some people in this audience must still think he's guilty of some, most, or all of the things they read in the papers. Nor does anyone ask, even at the end of this awkward and irrelevant variety show, if his old life and career were really worth risking for this new one. He would presumably offer his audience - who leave bewildered by a final belly-dance from a troupe called Mirage - the same answer he gave me.

"Imagine that someone offered to take you forward in a time machine. So you went, and you seen what I was able to see, in terms of how people turned out and what they were up to. Then you got told that the price of the journey was that you would lose this, and this, and this'. Would that be worth it? I think, on balance, yes. The court case showed me who my real friends are, and what value can you put on that? It was like an exorcism."

The Tommy Sheridan Chat Show is at the Gilded Balloon Teviot, at 7.15pm, until August 26

[Axlsbabe]

i was at his show the other night, Bob Crowe was one of the guests, pretty decent show tbh.

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I just saw this on the news - he's saying that it's all about Rupert Murdoch trying to frame him, so the case will be interesting to hear.

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Photo by Harry Smith
Defend Tommy Sheridan

ON 16 December, former Scottish Socialist Party MSP Tommy Sheridan was charged by Lothian and Borders police after the most expensive perjury investigation ever in Scotland. This investigation, instigated by the Scottish Crown Office, was ordered following Tommy Sheridan's defamation victory over Rupert Murdoch's News of the World in July 2006. The same Crown Office will now decide whether a criminal trial takes place.

Tommy was arrested and held for eight hours for questioning in Edinburgh while nine police officers descended on Tommy and Gail Sheridan's house in Glasgow. They detained Gail, who was alone with her two year old daughter, for eight hours while the police searched the house.

The press were tipped off about this stage-managed raid, an action that earned the police condemnation from many quarters for their intimidation and heavy-handed methods. As Tommy Sheridan commented: "I am being treated as if I am a murderer."

The unprecedented usurping of police resources to carry out this campaign exposes how far Murdoch's media empire, sections of Scotland's legal establishment and the police are prepared to go to try and target Tommy Sheridan.

Prominent Scottish journalist Iain McWhirter, writing in the Guardian, made the point: "The histrionic arrest and subsequent charging of the former Scottish Socialist MSP, Tommy Sheridan, as he left his radio talk show, is quite extraordinary. Perjury investigations are very rare even in criminal cases in Scotland, and it is unheard of for such an investigation to follow a defamation action.

"You can't help wondering why Lothian and Borders Police saw fit to devote hundreds of thousands of pounds to this case, when there are so many other demands on their time - such as pursuing rape cases in a region where fewer than 2% lead to successful prosecutions. One hopes similar effort will be devoted to investigating the illegal donations received by Scottish Labour leader Wendy Alexander's election campaign."

A colossal £500,000 of public money has been spent so far on the police inquiry by a force that had last year the worst rate for successful prosecutions of alleged rape of any police force in Scotland. Thousands of hours of police time have been diverted to this case, and for what purpose? To try and destroy the reputation of one of the most prominent socialists in Scotland.

Moreover, it is unprecedented in Scottish legal history for a civil defamation case to be followed by a criminal investigation into possible perjury having being committed.

As BBC Scotland solicitor Alistair Bonnington said on Newsnight Scotland on 17 December: "lies are told every day and in every case in courts across Scotland. What happens about that? Absolutely nothing. Just because this case involved a politician and a newspaper is not a reasonable basis at all to proceed with a perjury investigation. For Scotland this sets a precedent."
Anti-poll tax

TOMMY SHERIDAN has been the foremost figure in the Scottish socialist movement for nearly two decades. He was a leader of the anti-poll tax movement that was central to organising the mass non-payment campaign that defeated the Tory government in the early 1990s and in the process ended the career of Margaret Thatcher.

He served a four-month jail sentence during that campaign as a result of his leadership of it, and he was elected from his prison cell to Glasgow city council in 1992.

Tommy was elected as a socialist living on the average wage of a worker to the Scottish parliament in 1999. His uncompromising stand against racism, poverty, injustice and as a fighter for ordinary working people earned the hatred of the right-wing press and the big business establishment.

It was this that made him the target of the Murdoch media empire whose stable of papers include the Sun and News of the World, papers with a long record of attacking workers, trade unionists, asylum seekers and socialists. Murdoch's vendetta against Tommy Sheridan is part of a campaign to destroy any opposition to the billionaires and the system that the Murdochs of this world seek to defend at all costs.

This vendetta has increased in intensity and desperation following Tommy Sheridan's defamation victory against Murdoch's News of the World in 2006. The now possibility of a perjury trial is a continuation of this witch-hunt by the Murdoch empire. As Iain McWhirter commented: "It is hard not to conclude that the police's diligence has been inspired by Rupert Murdoch's News International."

A 'defend Tommy Sheridan campaign' website has been set up. Hundreds of people have pledged their support including leading members of the trade union movement like Bob Crow of the RMT and Janice Godrich of the PCS union. As have George Galloway MP, Socialist Party councillors Dave Nellist, Rob Windsor and Ian Page, Paddy Hill of the Birmingham Six and Gerry Conlon from the Guildford Four.

Pages set up on myspace and facebook have attracted support from many people including Paul Heaton, singer from the Housemartins and the Beautiful South, as well as Edwyn Collins. Tens of thousands of copies of a four-page newspaper have been produced by Solidarity, Scotland's Socialist Movement, to highlight this case.

A series of Defend Tommy Sheridan rallies are planned with prominent speakers from the socialist and trade union movement as well as a concert and possible CD.

Add your name to those speaking out in defence of Tommy Sheridan; be one of many willing to stand up against the Murdoch vendetta. Demand an end to the shocking waste of public resources being used to prosecute this witch-hunt. For the right not to be silenced by the rich and powerful.
# For more information, contact #


www.defendtommysheridan.org

[luke]

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I heard a bit from his show a few weeks back in which he interviewed the comedian Janey Godley and it was clear that he'd really improved his broadcasting skills, so I'm surprised they've dumped him.

Anyway, I'm sure there must be someone out there who has his most or all of his shows recorded and if they want to get in touch I'll be happy to put them online here.

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Here's the clip of Tommy on last night's MOATS talking about the Poll Tax. I was hoping that there would be discussion of why Galloway didn't give his support to Solidarity in the recent by-election, but no luck.

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[cobweb]

I was very disappointed in the interview with Tommy...it smacked very much of a mutual appreciation society convention. Given two of the best socialist politicians had a huge variety of topics to discuss, not least of which being why GG continued support for Labour in Scotland (opposing a major anti-war party in the SNP) while he continues to berate them at every oppotunity in england I consider this a chance missed. I pretty much agree with the majority of GG's political slant, Scottish nationalism apart, and would have enjoyed a debate on this subject. C'est la vie...maybe I will have to pluck up some courage and try phoning in and debating with the man himself?

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You should phone in - it's not really courage you need though, just confidence in what you're saying... let us know when you're on. They can keep you hanging on for quite a while though, not that I've tried myself.

[mickyv]

I suppose that the difference is, is that Tommy had a radio show before going in !

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/scottish/scottish_news/100124/See-I-told-you-Im-under-surveillance.html

[faceless]

haha, that should be good

I see that Harry's Place have pounced on it - if only there was a tory with a personality who was ready to go on a reality show who they could get behind... the best they've managed so far is Ann Widdecombe and Neil Hamilton!