Thursday 27 January 2011

Tommy Sheridan Sentence

The disgraced socialist politician Tommy Sheridan has been jailed for three years after being told he had brought "the walls of the temple crashing down" by repeatedly lying on oath about his adultery.

Passing sentence at the high court in Glasgow today, Lord Bracadale said Sheridan had deliberately committed perjury after ignoring a series of warnings from friends not to sue the News of the World over its allegations about his sex life six years ago.

Sheridan was found guilty by a majority verdict last month of lying in order to win a £200,000 libel action against the newspaper in 2006, after the longest perjury trial in Scottish legal history.

Sheridan's lawyer, Aamer Anwar, announced he would appeal against the conviction and would start legal proceedings against News International, the owner of the NoW, as well as the Metropolitan police and Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator jailed for hacking mobile phones for the paper.

The trial heard that Sheridan's home address, phone number and pin code appeared in Mulcaire's notebooks; the two entries appeared to date from 2004, when the NoW was preparing its exposés of Sheridan's sex life. A senior Met detective, Det Chief Superintendent Phil Williams, admitted at the trial that the force never investigated why Sheridan's name and details appeared.

In a statement read by Anwar outside the court, Sheridan said: "For far too long, NoW has scapegoated and destroyed lives with immunity. The multimillion-pound prosecution will separate me from my wife and child, and that will be heartbreaking. But I will continue to fight a system that protects the real criminals – the rich and powerful."

Andy Coulson, who was the paper's editor when its stories about Sheridan's sex life were published and when it lost the defamation action, gave evidence during the trial. Andy Coulson, until last week the prime minister's chief media adviser, gave evidence during Sheridan's trialabout the hacking scandal – he had been the paper's editor when its stories of Sheridan's sex life were published and it lost the defamation action.

Referring to Coulson's resignation as David Cameron's head of communications last Friday because of the escalating hacking controversy, Sheridan said Coulson should face "real justice" and be prosecuted for the alleged hacking.

The former Scottish Socialist party leader and MSP pleaded for leniency from the court and. He argued he had not been convicted for lying about a murder or to cover up a serious crime. "This is not a murder trial, nobody has died nor has an innocent party been imprisoned," he said.

Bracadale told Sheridan, 46, he was undoubtedly a very effective politician, who worked hard for others and whose contribution to the anti-poll tax campaign "will become part of the fabric of Scottish social and political history". But he then quoted a previous legal judgement which said perjury was a serious crime which "strikes at the fundamental basis of our system of justice."

Sheridan was told he was solely to blame for his perjury conviction: he knew that to win his libel action he had to lie under oath and, by lying, he won a "very large sum" in damages.

"By pursuing, and persisting in the pursuit of, a defamation action against the proprietors of the News of the World, you brought the walls of the temple crashing down, not only on your own head but also on the heads of your family and your political friends and foes alike," the judge said.

In a legal first in a Scottish court, journalists were allowed to tweet from court during the sentencing.

As Sheridan was led away to begin his sentence, his wife, Gail, held up her right fist in salute and his mother, Alice, shouted out: "The man who could not be bought."

Gail Sheridan, who was prosecuted but cleared of perjury last month, told scores of reporters and supporters outside the court that her husband would resume his political life after he was released. Several sources say she is now unlikely to run in her husband's place as a Solidarity candidate in the Scottish parliamentary elections in May.

"Tommy has dedicated his life to helping others," she said. "The real reason why he has imprisoned today is because he has fought injustice and inequality with very beat of his heart. But it won't be long before Tommy is back, stronger and continuing the fight."

The NoW confirmed it was appealing against Sheridan's libel victory. The paper will demand Sheridan pays all its legal costs if it wins, potentially bankrupting him. Under electoral law, Sheridan would be barred from standing again for parliament if he became an undischarged bankrupt.

Sheridan was taken to Barlinnie prison in Glasgow, but his supporters believe he could be released before Christmas with an electronic tag.

The NoW said it had been vindicated. "This is a just outcome to a long and complex criminal case. Today's sentence also provides closure for the many witnesses who very bravely exposed their own lives to public scrutiny when they testified to Mr Sheridan's guilt," the paper said.

Dundee Leads on Drug Use

In May 2008, Scotland’s Public Health Minister promised to seek police action over claims that part of Dundee’s Hilltown was “awash with drugs”. Shona Robison, MSP for Dundee East, was speaking after a report in the Dundee Evening Telegraph about a heroin dealer whose Hilltown flat was visited by 50 people in less than five hours.

Police had been keeping 43-year-old Donna Winter’s Powrie Place home under surveillance after receiving a tip-off that she was selling drugs. Her solicitor, George Donnelly, told the court that the Hilltown was “awash with heroin” and a torrent of addicts would flood down to his client’s home.

The minister said the drugs issue was one the Scottish Government took seriously and were committed to tackling and would due to unveil a new drugs strategy soon, placing extra emphasis on helping addicts to recover.

A survey of heroin users in Dundee, published earlier that year, found that most were taking the drug daily and spending an average of £18,000 a year to feed their habit. Deputy Chief Constable Kevin Mathieson admitted the force was losing its battle against drug misuse.

He told members of the Tayside Joint Police Board that despite police efforts over the past 10 to 20 years “things are getting worse” with more deaths from overdoses, more people becoming addicts and drugs being cheap and freely available. Those have proved to be prophetic words.

With an overall upward trend from 244 drug related deaths in 1996 to 545 deaths in 2009, The recently published National Drug Related Deaths Database (Scotland) Report 2009 showed that Dundee has the highest rate of drugs related deaths in Scotland, higher even than Glasgow. Dundee can now truly call itself the drugs capital of Scotland.

The majority of those who died a drug related death in 2009 were male, white and from deprived areas. Nearly 9 out of 10 were under the age of 45. Those who had died a drug related death were not an unknown group with the vast majority known to services or others as drug users. Nor were these novice drug users. Where known, two thirds had been long term users for 5 or more years.

There was also a high prevalence of mental ill health, with nearly half of those who had died reported as having a psychiatric condition in the 6 months prior to death with many having had multiple diagnoses. This high prevalence of mental ill health is also illustrated through the fact that 1 in 4 of all cases had attempted suicide and that 1 in 5 overall had a history of self harm at some point in their lives.

This is a group with an inconsistent pattern of contact with services. Nearly 40% overall had been in contact with drug treatment services within 6 months prior to their death. Most of those who were in contact with their GP had been so in the past year. The fact that two thirds of all cases had been in contact with either a drug treatment service or a GP within the 12 weeks prior to death demonstrates that these individuals have not all disconnected and therefore there is the potential to intervene.

Sunday 16 January 2011

Wonderful Words and Phrases - Foostie, Foustie

When something has gone off it is described as "foostie", e.g. "oh look at that loaf it's ah green and foostie."

Wednesday 12 January 2011

2011 - The Year of Discontent?

The Legacy of Thatcher

Those of us born during or before the 1960s will long remember the impact of the Conservative Governments of 1979 to 1997. In particular the "reign" from 1979 to 1990 is characterised by one word, Thatcher. For those of us who eschewed the benefits of public bodies, public industries and the safety net of the welfare state, that word brings with it a whole story. That story is one where public enterprise was rolled back and sold off. That story is one where the welfare net had large holes slashed into it. That story was one where unemployment in the UK reached three and half million. That story was one where the trade union movement was castrated. That story was one where we became poll tax guinea pigs a year ahead of England, when the Government of the time couldn't muster one Member of Parliament in Scotland.

That period in history brought with it a new language. The politics of the time became "Thatcherism". The offspring when grew up during these years became known as "Thatcher's Children" because by then, they had absorbed the gimme gimme gimme culture. It is the most negative spin on Thatcherism, the notion that she encouraged a climate of selfish, uncaring greed.

If we thought the Labour Government of 1997 to 2010 would reverse this moral decline we were mistaken. Privatisations continued, and were even taken into realms undreamed of by the previous administration. Private cash was brought into the public services like health and education in a way never previously countenanced by the Labour party.

And, of course, any suggestion there was an alternative to a free market economy was entirely off the agenda. There was therefore no longer any credible socialist vote available to the electorate.

It is probably true to say, therefore, that Thatcherism entered the DNA of Britain - both politically and socially. So, to that extent, we are probably all Thatcher's children and grandchildren.

A New Civil Unrest

In the wake of last year’s student protests, a new era of civil unrest may be upon us. Those protests may be the start of a campaign of demonstrations, with other groups planning marches against job losses and the government’s £81billion cuts.

The Trades Union Congress has a large demo scheduled for March, just before the start of the new financial year in April, when many people will start feeling the impact of the cuts. ‘We’re concerned the impact of the expenditure cuts is going to be devastating,’ says Brendan Barber, director general of the TUC. ‘Certainly, we’ll see more demonstrations of public anger. In some areas, there’ll be difficult disputes. There could be strikes.’

Will we see anything on the scale of the landmark poll tax riots of the early 1990s?

The Humble Banker

Both David Cameron and Nick Clegg have pledged to put fairness at the heart of the coalition government. Yet the banking crisis has been a crisis for everyone except the banks who caused it, and people across Britain are facing severe cuts while bailed-out financial institutions are seen to have got off lightly and continue to award themselves huge bonus payments.

Yesterday, at the Treasury Select Committee, someone muttered another B-word, in a kind of furious admiration. The man dubbed “the unacceptable face of British banking” was explaining that the time for bankers’ remorse was over. Even the shorthand typist stopped chewing her gum. Like most people, she missed that period when the Banks stopped paying themselves enormous amounts of money and said sorry to the world for plunging it into financial crisis. RED, as he is apparently known at Barclays – short for Robert Edward Diamond Jnr – barely broke from a monotonous drawl, as if trying to bore the committee into submission. Flashing whitened teeth and a discreet tan, he toyed throughout with a bulldog clip that he crushed at times between his fingers. An ardent Chelsea fan, RED makes John Terry look badly paid. Now worth around £100million, he received £23million in 2006, £18million in 2007, £17.5million in 2008 and a mere £8million in 2009.

No wonder he thinks the time for humility is over!

Luckily for Mr Diamond the Coalition is already backing away from its pledge to tackle city bonuses. Instead, they’ll insist banks start lending money to small businesses. “We want to lend to small businesses,” RED said. Brilliant. So, the government’s going to let them off in return for doing something they were already doing. All in all, it was a despicable performance. At just after 1pm, Andrea Leadsom MP summed up the “marathon” two and a half hours meeting.

“You’ve given us nothing,” she said.