More fear than hope as SNP share stage with Sheridan

Sandra White, Alex Neil, Colin Beattie and Gil Paterson got all they deserved yesterday.

The quartet of SNP MSPs agreed to share a stage with Tommy Sheridan at his preposterous Hope Over Fear rally in Glasgow’s George Square.

They may have justified the decision to themselves on the basis that any chance to engage with the public should be taken regardless of who else is involved. If they did, then they were naive at best.

White, Neil, Beattie and Paterson were left facing a cross between Brigadoon and Phoenix Nights set on Craggy Island in the wind and rain.

The big-screen showing of Braveheart stuttered, then failed. When it finally did blink into life, inappropriate scenes were beamed out to early-morning shoppers and kids.

The expected crowds were nowhere to be seen and those who did turn up were faced with Sheridan shouting into a mic about the evils of the media and the presence of the Union flag over the city chambers.

If Nicola Sturgeon didn’t see enough cause to ban her senior colleagues f rom working with Sheridan before this, then she should now.

The former SSP leader assiduously cultivates an image as the ultimate political outsider, a brave and hardy survivor of Establishment bullying. He is anything but.

Putting his personal sexual conduct to one side, h is behaviour towards his former political colleagues as his empire col lapsed around his ears was disgraceful. In this, the age of political reinvention, that should never be forgotten.

If Sheridan wants to campaign for independence, that’s his business. The movement is a broad church. But he should not be afforded the legitimacy of a stage shared by some of the more senior members of the party of Scottish Government.

If White, Neil, Beattie and Paterson are invited back by Sheridan, they might want to make a quick call to their party colleague Mhairi Hunter.

The Glasgow city councillor said of the event: “People will be put off voting Yes by seeing folk cheering Braveheart and then cheering Tommy Sheridan. That wil l absolutely put soft Nos off.”

Councillor Hunter has nailed it. In doing so, she has understood a central message issued by her party’s leader since she succeeded Alex Salmond. It isn’t 2014 any more, never mind 1297.

People will be put off voting Yes by seeing folk cheering Tommy Sheridan