Tommy Sheridan
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For the 18th century Irish actor and educator, see Thomas Sheridan.
Tommy Sheridan (born 7 March 1964, in Glasgow) is a Scottish socialist politician and a leading figure in the new Scottish political party Solidarity.
He attended the Roman Catholic schools of St Monica's Primary and Lourdes Secondary before entering the University of Stirling, from which he graduated with an honours degree in Economics. He married Gail, a stewardess, in 2000.
Sheridan was active in the Militant Tendency faction inside the Labour Party, before leaving Labour as a member of Scottish Militant Labour (SML). He was a leading campaigner against the poll tax in Scotland, and was jailed for six months for trying to stop a warrant sale. He has also been jailed twice as a consequence of his activities campaigning against the presence of the nuclear fleet at Faslane Naval Base. In 2006 he won a libel action against the News of the World. Sheridan has recently claimed that MI5 are behind some of the allegations made against him[1]
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[edit] Political Career
[edit] Militant Tendency
Sheridan was a prominent member of the Militant Tendency/Revolutionary Socialist League (RSL) whilst a student at Stirling University. After graduating he went to Cardonald College as a typing student as part of an (unsuccesful) effort on the part of the Militant/RSL to recruit Scottish Labour Students in further-education colleges. The Labour Party leadership under Neil Kinnock was determined to remove any member of the Militant Tendency and Sheridan himself was expelled from the Labour Party in 1989.
As the highest profile Militant/RSL member in Scotland, Sheridan was a leading figure in the groups split in the early 1990s. He was emboldened by the success of the campaign against the poll tax; many Militant/RSL members - particularly in Scotland - argued for the abandonment of entryism and for the creation of Scottish Militant Labour and Militant Labour in England and Wales as separate political parties.
The argument was resolved in favour of those who backed Sheridan's arguments and this led to Ted Grant being expelled from Militant. However, the momentum of the Scots was such that eventually Scottish Militant Labour argued in favour of founding a new, left-wing political party, known initially as the Scottish Socialist Alliance, with supporters of the Committee for a Workers International (the International founded by Militant) as a faction within it. The SSA was formed and in 1998 became the SSP, but the CWI faction led by Sheridan, the International Socialist Movement, ulitmately broke with the CWI. A minority of the ISM decided to remain with the CWI and formed their own faction, the International Socialists which remained as a small faction within the SSP until they broke from it in August 2006.
Sheridan fought two elections while in prison. In the Pollok constituency at the 1992 General Election he won a not inconsiderable share of the vote, and a few weeks later won the Pollok ward on Glasgow City Council. He contested the European Parliament election in 1994 as an SML candidate.
[edit] Scottish Socialist Party
[edit] Role in the Scottish Socialist Party
Tommy Sheridan was a leading figure in the negotiations to establish the Scottish Socialist Alliance in 1996, which evolved into the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) in 1998. He was elected to the Scottish Parliament in 1999 as a Glasgow representative.
He was the convenor of the SSP from its formation until November 11, 2004, when he resigned, citing as a prime reason his wife Gail expecting their first child.
At the annual conference of the SSP in early 2005 Sheridan was elected to the SSP executive and at the March 2006 conference he was elected as co-chair, along with Morag Balfour.
Sheridan announced that he was leaving the SSP in August 2006, after his prominent court-case victory.
[edit] Resignation from convenorship
The resignation of Tommy Sheridan from the SSP was steeped in controversy. After his announcement to step down for family reasons, the News of the World ran a series of articles, among other allegations claiming that he had had an extra-marital affair. Sheridan strenuously denied the accusations and quickly announced his intention to sue.
As part of their defence the News of the World demanded that the Scottish Socialist Party hand over all documents related to the executive committee immediately prior to Tommy Sheridan's resignation. The Executive Committee of the party declined and publicly requested that Sheridan withdraw the court case. On refusing to hand over the documents, Alan McCombes, the party's policy co-ordinator, was found in contempt of court and jailed for 12 days, while the Scottish Socialist Party offices and McCombes' private home were raided by Messengers at Arms. The following National Council supported a request by Sheridan that the minutes be handed over to the court at the earliest possible opportunity and voted to give him "full political support" in his libel action.
During the court case the minutes of the meeting were made public. The minutes included a discussion about a recent article in the News of the World which alleged that a married MSP had visited a swingers/sex club in Manchester, and also the admission by Sheridan that he had in fact visited the club on two occasions, in 1996 and 2002 with close friends. He acknowledged that this had been reckless behaviour and had, with hindsight, been a mistake... his strategy was to deny the allegations. It recorded that Sheridan left the meeting early, but before leaving, he repeated that he did not believe there was any evidence which would prove him to be lying. He did not accept that he should admit the visits to the club and felt that no-one should comment on private lives.
[edit] Controversy
In the immediate aftermath of the case, he accepted £30,000 from a tabloid for series of features one of which discussed his family life extensively and featured photographs of his wife and daughter, while another accused the four SSP MSPs of a conspiracy to get rid of him from the convenorship and called them Scabs. [1] [2]
Since then he has threatened the SSP with legal action to recover donations he had made since becoming an MSP in 1999, claiming that the donations were "loans"[3], of attempting to fire staff which he collectively employed[4], had a grievience upheld against him by one of his staff[5] and has removed funding from workers that he collectively employed [6]. The NUJ and the IWW are now in official dispute with Sheridan over his treatment of the parliamentary staff which he formerly employed[7][8], holding a demonstration over this issue on 11th December 2006[9].
Sheridan has accused the SSP of being part of "the mother of all stitch ups" involving not only their leadership, the United Left platform and the party's youth wing, but also MI5 and News International.
[edit] Solidarity Party
Tommy Sheridan has recently announced that he is forming a new political party in Scotland named Solidarity, with fellow MSP Rosemary Byrne. This follow the acrimonious split with the Scottish Socialist Party after Sheridan’s recent legal case with the News of the World.
[edit] Defamation Action
- See main article Sheridan v News International.
Hearings in Sheridan's defamation case against the publishers of the News of the World began in the Court of Session in Edinburgh on 4 July 2006. Unusually in Scottish civil proceedings, the case was heard before a jury.
The jury heard allegations that Sheridan had visited "swingers" clubs in Manchester and had engaged in an adulterous affair with another woman. Sheridan, who claims to be teetotaler, reportedy drunk champagne during an extra-marital liaison. Sheridan denies drinking the champagne. Eleven members of the SSP's executive committee testified that he admitting to attending a swingers club with women in an Executive committee meeting, but another four members of the SSP who were present at that Executive meeting backed Sheridan's claim that he made no such admission at that meeting [10].
On 14th July, Sheridan sacked his legal team and announced that he would represent himself following controversy over the source of a question over credit card fraud addressed to one of the witnesses [11].
On 4 August 2006, Sheridan won his case with a majority verdict of 7 - 4 and maximum damages of £200,000 [12]. The News of the World has appealled the verdict. In the Scottish Socialist Voice of August 8, a letter signed by further six leading members of the SSP confirmed that Sheridan had told them that he had admitted to attending the Manchester swingers' club at an SSP Executive meeting.
Work at News International was reportedly heavily affected by the atmosphere surrounding the court proceding, and in the absence of Bob Bird the decision fell to Ian Mason as to whether the News of the World would run a Tommy Sheridan themed pull-out. He decided that the supplement would run.
[edit] Hidden video
On Sunday 1st, October 2006, the News of the World reignited controversy by publishing new evidence in support of its accusation that Sheridan lied to the Court of Session. A transcript [13] of what it claims is a video recording of Tommy Sheridan describes him confessing to SSP member George McNeilage, one of Sheridan's three best men at his wedding, that he visited a swingers club in Manchester twice, and that he had previously admitted this to an SSP Executive meeting, directly contradicting his and fellow MSP Rosemary Byrne's court testimonies. George McNeilage claims he secretly taped the meeting, prior to the defamation action, using a hidden camera at his home.
The transcript, and excerpts from the tape, can be found on the News of the World website[2]. The full legal ramifications of this evidence are not yet clear.
The newspaper has not been able to produce any images from the video showing Sheridan's face and Sheridan says the video is a fake. The News of the World claims it had four independent voice analysts confirm that the voice on the tape is that of Tommy Sheridan. [14]. But in an interview for the BBC a forensic speech scientist, Peter French, said: "Experts should never say conclusively they have identified a person and this kind of evidence should never solely be used to bring a criminal trial". [3]
Sheridan has now suggested that both MI5 and Rupert Murdoch conspired to concoct the videotape to undermine his campaign for an independent socialist Scotland, [4].
[edit] Perjury Probe
The conflicting evidence given during the trial resulted in the judge warning several witnesses about the implications of perjuring themselves.
On 22 August 2006, the Crown Office said it had instructed the Edinburgh procurator fiscal to examine all of the evidence given in the defamation case to see if there were grounds for a criminal investigation. On 2 October 2006 prosecutors ordered police to carry out a criminal investigation into allegations of perjury [5].
Two weeks into the perjury investigation police are in the process of interviewing trial witness, as well as those who were not called to give evidence in court. It is reported that they will also be seizing one or more computers from SSP offices used to prepare the minutes of the SPP's Executive Committee held immediately before Sheridan's resignation as party leader [6].
[edit] Other Information
Sheridan is known as an articulate and able orator and often speaks at political rallies and public meetings throughout Scotland. [7]
With Joan McAlpine, he published "A Time to Rage" which chronicled the anti-poll tax movement of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Joan has since written about the young man she knew during that turbulent youthful period, with reference in particular to the libel case.
Together with Alan McCombes he published "Imagine", an outline of the principles of socialism.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Sheridan juggled his political career with another of his passions, football, playing for Junior teams East Kilbride Thistle F.C., the (now defunct) Baillieston and St Anthony's F.C. in the Abercorn Central District League.
A photograph of Tommy Sheridan can sometimes be seen in the house of Archie the Inventor in the popular children's TV series Balamory[15].
Tommy supported Trinidad & Tobago and Sweden in the 2006 World Cup in Germany.
[edit] References
- ^ Letters (2006-06-01). Retrieved on 2006-07-15.
- ^ The Missing Column: "Context Is Everything". The Scottish Patient (2006-05-26). Retrieved on 2006-07-15.
- ^ Sheridan cash battle with SSP may go to court
- ^ Solidarity shuns workers rights
- ^ Amicable Divorce will cost Sheridan £20,000
- ^ Sheridan betrays his own workers
- ^ NUJ support for 11 members at Scottish Parliament
- ^ http://www.iww.org.uk/about/updates/061123-solidarity/index.html NUJ Backs Dispute with Sheridan
- ^ Scottish Parliament Demo - 7th December
- ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/glasgow_and_west/5401830.stm
- ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/5179718.stm
- ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/5246378.stm
- ^ http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/sheridanscript.shtml
- ^ "Sheridan rubbishes video claims", 2006-01-10. Retrieved on 2006-10-02.
- ^ The Sunday Herald talks to the Balamory cast and production team
Tommy Sheridan, Tommy Sheridan Time To Go Demo 23 Sept 2006, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qK-dLddBatE, www.YouTube.com, pulled Nov. 13, 2006.
[edit] External links
- Reaction to Tommy Sheridan Sex Case
- BBC News: Sheridan unveils Solidarity party
- "Sheridan resigns as SSP leader", BBC News, 2004-11-11. Retrieved on 2006-07-14.
- SSP Official Website
- BBC News: Sheridan starts defamation action
- The Scotsman: Sheridan 'admitted going to swingers' club'
- The Herald: Sheridan libel jury considers a question of hypocrisy
- BBC News: Call girl claims Sheridan affair (coverage of libel case)
- The Scotsman: Sheridan had an affair with former prostitute, journalist tells court
- BBC News: Sheridan 'admitted' being in club
- Sheridan wins defamation case
- Sheridan victory in court battle
- Tommy Sheridan MSP
- News of the World Sheridan confession tape
- Sheridan claims to be 'victim of MI5 plot'
