danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
Yes, but enjoying News International getting a drubbing isn't necessarily the same as thinking Tommy is telling the truth.Julie said:Me too! I loathe him
Sheridan wins libel case
- Thread starter junius
- Start date
Question: Has Tommy sheridan admitted to this "sex scandal"? If so, when and to whom and are there documents to support this supposed reality?
Comment: Murdoch would be grinning from ear to ear if he read this thread. Divide and conquer is the right wing leader(s) and media magnates' stock in trade.
Comment: Murdoch would be grinning from ear to ear if he read this thread. Divide and conquer is the right wing leader(s) and media magnates' stock in trade.
danny la rouge said:
I fear this may well be the case
If you read this article it looks as though TS might be beginning to realise its not going to be a walk in the park to getting his position back.
http://www.theherald.co.uk/politics/67678.htm
The news of the world have very little chance of winning their appeal and getting a retrial. To get a retrial they'd have to show that no reasonable jury could have reached the verdict that Tommy was telling the truth. But a jury is quite entitled to believe one set of witnesses over another. So I can't see how they can win that one.
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
I think that's correct - juries can believe whoever they want; it doesn't make them right. And I couldn't care less about the News of the World.Bear said:
But if Tommy's ego is going to take down the SSP - the most successful parliamentary socialist party since the ILP - and maybe even take down socialism too, then I think we need to pay attention to what actually went on. And ask ourselves questions about charismatic leaders, the cult of personality, and the true nature of solidarity.
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
Correct.4thwrite said:
justuname said:
Funny set of minutes.
No apologies,no agenda and it reads like a story.
I'm not saying its fake but you'd think a major political party would be able to keep proper minutes of the meetings of it's leading body.
The 12 page document that accompanies it appears with it appears to be full of slurs and allegations.
I'd come down on the side of Sheridan rather than a bunch of bitter and twisted sectarian faction fighters so far gone that they'd testify for the Murdoch press.
Still,it's probably too late to save the SSP
JHE
.
It was not a regular meeting of the Exec. There wasn't any other item on the agenda of that 'special meeting' of the exec, AFAIK, so it doesn't seem so odd to me.osterberg said:
What would you have had them do - refuse to testify and all go to prison for contempt of court? For how long?
Yes. It's been destroyed by Sheridan's vain insistence on suing the News of the Screws and his arrogant demand that his comrades commit perjury (or go to prison indefinitely for contempt).Still,it's probably too late to save the SSP
JHE,the minutes just don't appear of the standard they should be for a major political party.
And were they telling the truth when they testified?
I honestly don't know.
You're right about the court case.It would have been better for Sheridan and the SSP to have ignored the NOTW story and moved on.
And were they telling the truth when they testified?
I honestly don't know.
You're right about the court case.It would have been better for Sheridan and the SSP to have ignored the NOTW story and moved on.
Fullyplumped
in a personal capacity
I've seem minutes of Labour Party meetings at that level and they're not that much different.osterberg said:
The strange thing to my eyes is the use of Arial 13 point with odd compression. I suppose it's a form of trying to protect against forgery, or something.
JoePolitix
Gone
osterberg said:
http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=1153362006
0. Questions over 'swingers' club' documents
0. Minutes from SSP meeting had been handed to police as evidence
0. But confusion now seems to exist over whether they ever existed
"That is not the minutes of the meeting, it is a document that has been concocted. It bears no relation, to me, to a proper executive committee meeting, and I have listened to a lot." - John Aberdein, vice-chairman of the Orkney branch of the SSP
JoePolitix
Gone
JHE said:
The minutes of that meeting are about as convincing as Blair's dodgy dosier.
JHE
.
It was quite some conspiracy to do down Big Tommy, eh?JoePolitix said:
Eleven SSP Exec members got together to lie through their teeth in court to back up a faked document. I wonder who else was involved. Mossad? CIA? Little green Martian counter-revolutionaries? Shape-shifting pixie-owls?
Wilf
Slouching towards Billingham
I would guess that the minutes are genuine. However the Exec members initially went along with the strategy of non-cooperation with the court - which included the defence of 'there isn't a minute'/'it got destroyed'. they of course want to then use the minute to show sheridan is lying - but hit the problem of previously saying there was no minute. What a tangled web we weave...
The bottom line though is this: has anyone who was actually at the meeting come out and said 'no, Tommy never admitted to the swingers club allegation. Neither did he say the ssp should go along with his version of events while he sued the NoW'?
Vast majority of those present have said he is telling porkies - and of those who didn't give evidence against him in court, i don't think they have unambiguously agreed with his version of the meeting. Might be wrong though...
The bottom line though is this: has anyone who was actually at the meeting come out and said 'no, Tommy never admitted to the swingers club allegation. Neither did he say the ssp should go along with his version of events while he sued the NoW'?
Vast majority of those present have said he is telling porkies - and of those who didn't give evidence against him in court, i don't think they have unambiguously agreed with his version of the meeting. Might be wrong though...
JoePolitix
Gone
JHE said:
Those 11 SSPers just happened to be Sheridan's political rivals and represent a minority clique at the top of the party. And yes they did lie about the minutes of the meeting in the court, whichever way you look at it.
Wilf
Slouching towards Billingham
they (or some of them) quite possibly did lie about the existence of the minutes in court. However that doesn't strengthen sheridan's case against them. The vastly more likely version of the lie was that they were keeping the evidence that would have shafted him (and allowed a Now victory) out of the court. If so, that means he is now throwing their 'honourable' strategy in his favour back in their faces.JoePolitix said:
JoePolitix
Gone
4thwrite said:
I doubt it was a good will jesture, given that those "comrades" were the ones who forced Tommy out of his position as convenor for his willingness to fight Murdoch's vermin. Sounds more like a strategic cock-up to me. The real honourable strategy would have been for the SSP to unite behind Tommy against Murdoch's scab empire rather than align with the latter for their own factional gain.
Fullyplumped
in a personal capacity
Even if they were convinced that he was lying and that they would have had to be complicit in his lies? How would that be honourable?JoePolitix said:
Wilf
Slouching towards Billingham
Agree with that - the whole thing is underpinned by a factional fightJoePolitix said:
Can't agree with that. Whilst Murdoch/NoW are scum, his fight with them isn't a political one. They scummily ran his sex life as a story, he egotistically thought he could emerge with his halo intact. The only really honourable thing for him to do would have been to say 'no comment/fuck off' to the allegations - and then go on the attack about the way the gutter press are prurient scum.
And if he's that worked up about the press and its 'anti-working class bias', why is he appearing in thier pages on a daily basis, doing 'The Sheridan's At Home' type features.
JoePolitix
Gone
4thwrite said:
I'd say that the fight against the corporate press is a political one, afterall when the hard right Murdoch monopoly smears leading class militiants and anti-war activists their motives are political. Sheridan's victory (aswell as Galloway's previous one against the Torygraph) represent a turning point from the days when the corporate shitbags could slander socialists with impunity.
If Sheridan had just said 'no comment/ fuck off' in the not very read SSV that would have hardly been a strike back against Murdoch's complete domination of the media would it?
Tommy may have "egotistically thought he could emerge with his halo intact" but he was esentially right wasn't he? Despite the problems associated with egotism (Galloway being a case in point) at this stage, after decades of set backs and defeats for the workers movement, I'd rather there was a little more ego and a little less demoralised souls on the left to be honest.
Whether or not in retrospect Tommy's decision was wise is fairly immaterial now. The fact is that he did actually score a victory, against all the odds, over the class enemy. Hopefully he can build on this victory by leading a grassroots rebellion against the present leadership of the SSP, under who's stewardship the party has faired badly and lost support. That would be a far more significant victory for socialists in Scotland.
JoePolitix
Gone
Fullyplumped said:
Well I don't think that was the case.
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
By betraying his comrades, putting them in a impossible position, then denouncing them as scabs. When in fact it was he who was putting his own self-interest first.JoePolitix said:
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