discokermit
Well-Known Member
seems basic, doesn't it. sheridan is a vain idiot but these people are informers.
Sheridan perjury trial opens on Monday
- Thread starter Fullyplumped
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discokermit
Well-Known Member
Proper Tidy
Arsed
Nobody likes a fucking grass
not only that but what right does a newspaper have to pry into someone's private life ? Unless of course he was an old school Tory bleating on amout family values...
Proper Tidy
Arsed
Who would have gone to prison for life ffs?
McNeilage didn't go to the police, did he? He went to Uncle Rupert. He grassed for money.
McNeilage didn't go to the police, did he? He went to Uncle Rupert. He grassed for money.
dylans
overlord of all acorns
I think you exaggerate, you don't get life in prison for contempt of court. The worst that would have happened is they could have been locked up for several months and or be given fines.
But the real question is what is the cause? The "cause" isn't Tommy Sheridan. The "cause is a very simple very basic principle. YOU DON'T GRASS ON YOUR COMRADES. This should be ABC and frankly it is a tragedy that this has to be spelled out.
JHE
.
If you are in contempt of court, the judge can put you in prison until you purge your contempt. If you continue to disobey the court, you remain in prison.
You say that the SSPers, who had asked Tommy not be be a bloody fool, should have refused to give evidence. Do you imagine that at some point in their refusal the court would have said, 'OK, then, you don't have to do what we've told you, after all'?
Proper Tidy
Arsed
Yes, we get it that if Sheridan hadn't of pursued litigation in the first place then it could all have been avoided. But what does that have to do with McNeilage grassing for £200k to fucking Murdoch and the SSP not kicking the fucker out?
Proper Tidy
Arsed
JHE
.
You have Tommy's release to look forward to, then!
dylans
overlord of all acorns
The fact that you have to resort to melodramic hysterics really does your case no good at all
You are simply wrong on fact. Contempt of court has clear consequences. Imprisonment for up to 3 months. Nowhere does the law state they can throw the key away until you relent. Maybe in Egypt or Belarus but not in the UK.
dylans
overlord of all acorns
past caring
The Cathars were right
I well remember saying that about Tommy back in 1990.
dylans
overlord of all acorns
Were the SSP wrong to not expel him? He is still a member right? How can they justify him remaining a member?
I don't think insisting on basic socialist principles is histrionics. That you do says a lot about you.
As for your question re who benefits I thought it was answered but here is my two pennies worth.
Clearly Sheridan is an idiot and his stupid decision to sue has only benefited the NOTW who are rubbing their hands in glee at the damage this has caused.This entire farce has hurt the left in Scotland and ruined his personal reputation and that is a tragedy. None of that changes the fact that those members of the SSP who gave evidence against him should hang their heads in shame. They are nothing short of informers for the state and for Murdoch. They have disgraced themselves and dragged socialist politics through the mud.
dylans
overlord of all acorns
But it wasn't a choice between defending Sheridan or giving evidence against him was it? They could have done nothing. Just said nothing and refused to give evidence. In such a situation they would have come through this with respect..................instead of contempt.
and you haven't answered my question. Should the SSP have expelled George McNeilage?
(sorry I only just seen your edit- You still haven't answered the question though have you? Do you think it is acceptable for a Murdoch grass to be a member of a socialist organisation?)
Well here's an uber-principled position that the SSP could have taken:
1) Refuse to give evidence in the perjury trial (anybody who gives a shit about what evidence was given in Tommy's stupid defamation trial is frankly barking).
2) Refuse on the basis of the injustice of the perjury laws. Nevermind any crap about the beloved Tommy the saint being above the law because he is a comrade. If your socialism is the socialism of rights for people we like and fewer rights for people we don't then I don't want anything to do with your "socialism". Defend Sheridan and retrostpectively defend Archer and Aitken.
3) Release all information relative to the case in the party press, including anything incriminating. This sordid little legal affair was made political from day 1 by Tommy Sheridan. He insisted that the party rally behind him. The NC asked him to resign. All this needed to be explained to the party members and supporters. This issue of party democracy is far more important than this petty issue of incriminating a crook ("grassing" if you like).
Of course that would have been in contempt of court on two accounts. I don't expect anybody to follow this path in this rather sordid and apolitical attempt at upholding Tommy's family man reputation - the consequences were too high relative to the principles at stake. But if we are bleating about principles then those are my principles. Fuck Tommy, fuck the courts. Everything should have been out in the open from day 1 and in the party's press not the Herald or the News of the World. The problem George Macneilage faced was that the SSP probably wouldn't have put the video up on their website. The stupid bastards were still soppy about Tommy. Going to the press was second best. Good for him.
audiotech
wav, aiff, mp3, ogg, flac
Defend Archer and Aitken, who benefit from the base morality that functions in a class society? In which the pursuit is the idea of the “greatest possible happiness”, not for the majority, but for a small minority? Socialism is about a classless society, where a privileged minority doesn't exist. In the end means, and all means are permissible, if it leads to increasing the power of humankind over nature and to the abolition of the power of one class over another. To pursue a higher human morality.
Really? Someone should've told Tommy that.
So if I can make sense of the above, the bourgeois courts were acting on behalf of the socialist future when Archer and Aitken went down. Interesting theory.
I've known shop stewards who would happily defend their mates but would grass up co-workers they didn't like. Never thought much of that mentality myself, I've always liked the "injury to one is an injury to all" slogan. If Sheridan is worth defending then so were Archer and Aitken. Tory bastards have rights too.
Is anybody in the Sheridan camp going to come up with an even half principled opposition to the perjury laws? Or is it that they think that Tommy is a socialist version of the queen and should be exempt from the laws of the land? Or do they think he's innocent? What is the basis for defending Tommy?
discokermit
Well-Known Member
who's defending him?
fiannanahalba
Feel the Love
Twice in my life i have obstructed prosecutions on non political matters. Sure i was threatened with gaol, but i got no more than suspended gaol sentence on one occassion and community service on the other. Course i have convictions so most jobs and careers/professions are fucked. I recall a lot of bottle crashing from pb scumbags in the SSP when all this started to develop in 2004 , oh dear what about my career etc etc.
dennisr
the acceptable face
I am unsure of this but read on SU - in reply to a question about wether the SSP exec had no choice about testifying in court:
The reply was:
They did no thave to be involved.
At a meeting on 9/11/04, there was a discussion about an article in NOTW from October, and a personal discussion about Sheridan’s private life.
Proper procedure would have been to suspend standing orders and not minute this. Barbara Scott ignored common conventions of meetings and took an almost verbatim acocunt, that at the end of the meeting she gave to Alan Green for safe keeping.
People now have different recollections of that meeting; but it was a private meeting that need never have neen in the public domain.
However … … …
The very next day, SSP organiser, Duncan Roawn walked into the NOTW office and voluntarily gave them imfo about the previous day’s exec meeting, and without her knowledge put NOTW on the track of Katrina trolle, alledgeing that she was the one who Sheridan was having an affair with.
Katrina Trolle then gave her story to NOTW.
A couple of days after Rown went to the NOTW, Alan McCombes went to the Herald and gave a sworn affadvit that issues had been discussed at the 9/11/04 meeting which the SSP could have used to force Sheridan’s resignation.
At this point it was inevitable that SSP witnesses would be called if a libel action was commenced, but dragging them into court was not the work of Sheridan, but of McCombes, Scott and Rowan, who made sure that the contested and controversial nature of the 9/11/04 meeting was in the public domain.
There has not been any rebuttal of this comment - so i guess it holds? As PT said above though: "if Sheridan hadn't of pursued litigation in the first place then it could all have been avoided. "
Bakunin
I am Noodle's bitch.
Agreed.
The brass tacks of the case are these:
1. There was considerable media attention given to aspects of Tommy Sheridan's private life that he took none too kindly to becoming public knowledge, but were substantially accurate all the same.
2. He could have taken that on the chin and possibly ridden out the storm, albeit at some cost to his political career. Instead, he started legal action that would not only run and run in the media, but was also fundamentally dishonest.
3. Instead of dropping his already ill-advised legal action and opting for damage limitation, he opted instead to stand in the court, take the oath and then lie through his teeth thereby committing the serious criminal offence of perjury.
4. He could have simply admitted he liked swinging. Instead, and with spectacularly bad consequences for all involved, he's now fair game to be labelled not only a swinger, but a perjurer and a criminal as well.
I couldn't care less that he likes swinging clubs, or orgies or threesomes or whatever his sexual preferences may be, personally, but his handling of this situation has been nothing short of disastrous for the Scottish left. As far as the suggestion of people defending TS by refusing to give evidence, well you can go to prison just as easily, and for just as long, by committing contempt of court as you can for perjury. And, personally, I'm somewhat unlikely to risk a jail term for either contempt or perjury when I've already got pretty firm evidence that a defendant is actually guilty. If it was a trumped up case aimed at fitting someone up, then I might consider it, but not for someone who had committed the offence they were on trial for.
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