Nicola Sturgeon’s Holyrood Nightmare; is Convicted perjurer Tommy Sheridan about to make a comeback at Holyrood Parliament, his Solidarity party partners up with Alliance for Independence to stand under their banner as the new Holyrood Yes party, Sheridan’s toxic masculinity will see Sturgeon opt to snub him, ‘woke transcends indy’, and Sturgeon needs a cause since she won’t be delivering indyref 2

Dear All

 

The various campaigns to ‘rig’ the next Holyrood election in 2021 are starting to hot up, it seems that the rules are to be pushed to their legal limits, but one thing that has already been broken is acting in the spirit of the rules. The rise and fall of Tommy Sheridan was a great scandal to watch, from ‘man of the people’ to ‘jail bird’ was just another tale of someone who had everything, throwing it all away by acts of self harm. Having been snubbed by the public, it seems that Sheridan’s Solidarity Party has formally joined forces with Scotland’s new independence party, the Alliance for Independence (AFI). This lays the possible ground work for a possible comeback for the convicted perjurer. 

In days of old, a stint in the jail would have seen the end of someone’s ambition for public office. Tommy Sheridan does those who mad Celtic supporting videos on twitter and youtube, they are essential viewing….. if you want a laugh and want to say WTF repeatedly! Clearly Sheridan has gone the tribal and showman route, just as he latched on Scottish independence to revive his career; he also seems to latch on to Celtic, a ready made audience presumably. The Alliance for Independence (AFI) plans to field list-only candidates next year to game the system or ‘max the Yes’ at Holyrood. The question is who benefits from Solidarity standing under the AFI banner especially in places like Glasgow? 

The bottom of the Glasgow list has two Conservatives, Adam Tomkins and Annie Wells, along side Patrick Harvie, given Scottish Labour hold the other four. It would appear that three seats under the ‘game the system’ approach might be in danger of changing hands. In reality however, I would suggest that the real figure is two seats unless there is a tsunami of change in public opinion regarding the floating voters. You also have to factor in George Galloway’s Alliance for Unity, but to keep it to Glasgow, they have no history, no long campaign running, other than digital, and their lead candidate is a businessman, not a political campaigner who has the in depth experience to craft a bespoke campaign. George Galloway’s Alliance for Unity is really fishing in the Labour Party voting pool. 

Solidarity as a political party is really seen as a Tommy Sheridan vehicle, which was formed in 2006 after his bitter split with the Scottish Socialist Party when his various Court cases came to the fore. So, this is the first pro-independence party to come under the AFI umbrella but it begs the question, will the Scottish Socialist Party also come onboard as well? For the AFI strategy to work; there needs to be only candidates from Sheridan’s party in Glasgow standing. If others come onboard, it waters down the effectiveness so much that it isn’t viable. The same applies to George Galloway’s Alliance for Unity; his major problem is that it is unlikely that the Scottish Labour Party can win any FPTP seats in Glasgow as things stand at present. The only place which might be worth a punt at is Bob Doris’ seat in Maryhill and Springburn for Scottish Labour. Although there 8 constituency seats, Scottish Labour need to select three to put all their efforts into, so that would be Maryhill and Springburn, Glasgow Anniesland, and  Glasgow Shettleston. 

Will Scottish Labour HQ come to the same conclusion as me, who knows, but their track record saw them pump in effort to Blair McDougall’s campaign in East Renfrewshire, and I said, ‘waste of time, money and resources. I was proved right at that election; Blair managed a miserable third place finish. Picking where to fight is just as important as whom to fight, what to fight on and how. How Scottish Labour though that East Renfrewshire was viable was beyond me, they must have been blinded by previous results of Jim Murphy. Murphy was smart enough to know that in order to get in; you have to aggressive work your area and the vote. Blair McDougall might know how to run campaigns but that doesn’t mean he can transition to activist. To help you get your head round what I am saying, Lord King was in charge of British Airways, but no one let him fly the planes! 

AFI will be seen as a Trojan horse by Solidarity, they can’t get elected under their own banner or cause, so they will use ‘indy’ to rehabilitate Sheridan. What I would say, can ‘gaming the system’ do the job for Tommy Sheridan, his baggage is huge, he is a polarising figure and although working for the Russians like Alex Salmond, he isn’t exactly been given the welcome mat back by the Scottish public. Sheridan has had his day, and nothing in the decade since his scandal has changed that opinion for me. 

The AFI was set up by former SNP MSP Dave Thompson, he formerly setup Christians for Independence, it was one in a sea of little independence groups all fronted by SNP people. The idea was to get the public to think that there was broad support for Scottish independence when there wasn’t. If AFI gets its plan seeded in the minds of Yes voters, it could get 24 MSPs, and with the scandals around the SNP at present, this could see a shift to AFI from the SNP on the list. Who knows, maybe Nicola Sturgeon will back this for political expediency but there are dangers, especially if the SNP doesn’t get 65 seats and has to rely on others. Although Sturgeon like Salmond doesn’t play well with others, that doesn’t mean they aren’t willing to ‘use’ others. So, don’t rule out Sturgeon doing a U turn. At present the SNP and Greens have refused to stand aside on the list, I personally doubt the Scottish Greens weak vote on the list is backed by a pro indy vote, to me, it looks shaky. 

In kicking the can down the street, Dave Thompson said Solidarity would get a number of “winnable” places on the lists, and it would be up to Solidarity whether it selected Mr Sheridan as a candidate. 

He said: 

“We are delighted that Solidarity has decided to fight next year’s Holyrood election under our banner. We hope that this will encourage the other smaller pro-indy parties to seriously consider the option of now uniting with AFI and Solidarity to create an unstoppable force for independence at next year’s election.” 

Asked about Mr Sheridan’s character, Thompson said: 

“We’re a broad kirk. Our whole reason is to unite everyone across the political spectrum. Therefore Solidarity are just as welcome as any of the smaller parties.

“I get on fine with Tommy. I have no problem with him. It’s not for me to judge other people’s morals. I’m happy for Solidarity to nominate whoever they wish in due course to the places that we negotiate for them. It’s not for me to make any judgment on that or to tell them what they do.” 

Talk about a lack of judgement on Thompson! What do you think, would you pass Sheridan? He was sentenced to three years in prison in 2011 for committing perjury, works for the Kremlin-funded propaganda outlet Sputnik news, suggested the 2018 nerve agent attack in Salisbury was an anti-Russian smear. Just as people may question Thompson’s hands off decision, I would think some people would definitely question Sheridan’s world view through his Russian telescope. The agents responsible for the Salisbury attack were identified, and identified as working for the Russian military.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Sergei_and_Yulia_Skripal#Suspects_and_attack_timeline 

Finally, Tommy Sheridan is very much a ‘loose cannon’, and if he is elected, we can’t expect much, but there could be silver linings, he knocks out Patrick Harvie. Harvie sits at the bottom of the Glasgow Regional list, there are other ‘benefits’ of a Sheridan Holyrood return, there will be the collective condemnation of him by Parliament led by women. ‘Convicted perjurer’ will be flung about like confetti in the corridors of Holyrood. Feminist’s groups would protest him bitterly, maybe a mini campaign to try to convince him to resign, by laying down a guilt trip. It won’t work, but it gives certain MSPs and other grievance monkeys who have the IQ of a hand ball something to do. Then there is Nicola Sturgeon’s anger that someone dripping in toxic masculinity is in the same building as her and not under her thumb. Someone who will see her as she really is lamb dressed as mutton, and old mutton at that, let the games commence! 

Yours sincerely 

George Laird                                                                                                                                The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University