''Downfall: The Tommy Sheridan Story'' is a book by

Alan McCombes Alan William McCombes (born 1955) has been a leading member of the Scottish Socialist Party for several years, and was the editor of the '' Scottish Socialist Voice'' until 2003. With Tommy Sheridan, he was also author of Imagine: A Socialist Vis ...

, former policy co-ordinator of the

Scottish Socialist Party The Scottish Socialist Party (SSP; gd, Pàrtaidh Sòisealach na h-Alba; sco, Scots Socialist Pairtie) is a Left-wing politics, left-wing political party campaigning for the establishment of an Scottish independence, independent Socialism, so ...

(SSP) and editor of the ''

Scottish Socialist Voice The ''Scottish Socialist Voice'' is a fortnightly political newspaper in Scotland, published by the Scottish Socialist Party. History Established in November 1996, the ''Voice'' started life as the newspaper of Scottish Militant Labour, before b ...

'', about the political career of

Tommy Sheridan Tommy Sheridan (born 7 March 1966) is a Scottish politician who served as convenor of Solidarity from 2019 to 2021. He previously served as convenor of the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) from 1998 to 2004 and as co-convenor of Solidarity from 2 ...

, 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. McCombes finished writing the book—described by ''

The Scotsman ''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until August 2004. Its pa ...

'' 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 The ''News of the World'' was a weekly national Tabloid journalism#Red tops, red top Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid newspaper published every Sunday in the United Kingdom from 1843 to 2011. It was at one time the world's highest-selling En ...

'' after it published details of his sexual proclivities"—less than five months after Sheridan was jailed for committing perjury. The book was launched on 6 July 2011 at Word Power Books, Scotland's oldest radical and independent bookshop.

Reception

Paul Hutcheon Paul Hutcheon is a Scottish political journalist who currently serves as Investigations Editor for the ''Sunday Herald''. In 2006, while serving as political editor for the ''Sunday Herald'', he won both Journalist of the Year and Political Journa ...

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." James Doleman criticised it in ''The Scotsman'' for symbolising "the

Manichean Manichaeism (; in New Persian ; ) is a former major religionR. van den Broek, Wouter J. Hanegraaff ''Gnosis and Hermeticism from Antiquity to Modern Times''SUNY Press, 1998 p. 37 founded in the 3rd century AD by the Parthian Empire, Parthian ...

view of the case: good versus evil, light versus darkness", without accounting for any middle ground. 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 Dialectic ( grc-gre, διαλεκτική, ''dialektikḗ''; related to dialogue; german: Dialektik), also known as the dialectical method, is a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to ...

to explain how what happened happened".

References

2011 non-fiction books Scottish non-fiction books Books about British politicians {{UK-poli-bio-book-stub