Downfall (book)

Downfall: The Tommy Sheridan Story is a book by Alan McCombes, former policy co-ordinator of the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) and editor of the Scottish Socialist Voice, about the political career of Tommy Sheridan, who led the SSP for several years until he was forced to resign amid allegations about his personal life, eventually leaving the party a few years before his eventual conviction for perjury.[1]

Downfall: The Tommy Sheridan Story
AuthorAlan McCombes
CountryScotland
LanguageEnglish
PublisherBirlinn
Publication date
2011
Media typePrint
Pages352
ISBN978-1841587592

McCombes finished writing the book—described by The Scotsman as "the first insider's account of the fall-out from Sheridan's trips to a Manchester swinging club and his ill-fated decision to take on the News of the World after it published details of his sexual proclivities"—less than five months after Sheridan was jailed for committing perjury.[2]

The book was launched on 6 July 2011 at Word Power Books,[3] Scotland's oldest radical and independent bookshop.

Reception

Paul Hutcheon described the book in The Herald as "brilliantly written", adding: "Most tomes on Scottish politics are barely worth reading, but McCombes's offering deserves to be read far beyond Scotland. Although written by a modest man, the book has a savage turn of phrase and a wonderful repertoire of metaphors."[1]

James Doleman criticised it in The Scotsman for symbolising "the Manichean view of the case: good versus evil, light versus darkness", without accounting for any middle ground.[4]

Gregor Gall, who went on to write his own book about the Sheridan affair, said Downfall presented "somewhat shallow" analysis, and that there was "an absence of the use of dialectics to explain how what happened happened".[5]

References
  1. Hutcheon, Paul (20 June 2011). "Tommy Sheridan's descent from socialist hero... to zero". The Herald. Glasgow. Archived from the original on 4 June 2014. Retrieved 9 October 2017.
  2. "Interview: Alan McCombes - Tommy Sheridan: The truth". The Scotsman. Edinburgh. 10 June 2011. Retrieved 2 Jun 2014.
  3. "Alan McCombes launches his latest book, Downfall: The Tommy Sheridan Story, in Edinburgh, Scotland". 21 June 2011. Retrieved 2 June 2014.
  4. "Review of Downfall". Retrieved 2 June 2014.
  5. "Downfall: The Tommy Sheridan Story by Alan McCombes reviewed by Gregor Gall". 29 June 2011. Retrieved 2 June 2014.


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