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OH, IT’S Tommy this, and
Tommy that, and Tommy he’s a hoot. But it’s subverter of the Army when
the guns begin to shoot. Who’s Tommy? Certainly not Tommy Atkins,
mythical figure and British Army archetype but dapper,
heavily-demonstrative, lightly-tanned Tommy Sheridan, the sole Scottish
Parliamentary fugleman of the Scottish Socialist Party, passionate,
partisan self-publicist, whose well-tailored suits are a cut above the
proletarian average but who, wisely, wears no hat since people might
think he was talking through it.
What else do we know about this human megaphone whose voice at full
Marxist blast could call leviathan from the deep and get an irritated
response, but whose unswervingly-sincere committal to the cause of
social-ism in Britain if not the universe, makes him a type I had long
thought extinct and a personality that, operating at full battery power,
can leave many MSPs looking like flickering dimbulbs?
His working class credentials are as commendable as a commissar’s -
sales assistant, Burtons Menswear; removals lab-ourer, Pickfords; health
instructor; hypothermia programme team leader, Community Programme
Service; and Glasgow City councillor. Spasmodic guest in Her Majesty’s
slammers, national SSP convener, he was expelled by Labour for being a
leading figure in the Militant Tendency. He spent his honeymoon in Cuba
- where else?
All that would perhaps not have gained him a nomination for the old
Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, but it indicates that Tommy is a
true-blue comrade of the red dawn, a man whose words would spit in the
eyes of jumping-jack capitalist blood-suckers, oil-grabbing colonialists
and running dogs of "imperialist and illegal" warmongers.
Of the anti-Iraq war militant tendency, he has, according to a press
interview, called on British troops to disobey orders, lay down their
arms and leg it homewards. He also urged peace activists to increase
campaigns of infiltrating military bases and damaging warplanes, called
on trade unionists in war-supporting industries to strike and - lest we
forget - stated that the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, should be tried for
war crimes.
All very predictable from such an expert and tireless agitator whose
efforts to form a lollipop assault line against the war were seen
recently in a cacophonous children’s upsurge into the streets of
Edinburgh and other settlements. But there are more shots in his
agitprop armoury.
British troops, he claimed, had a choice, and those with doubts about
the war should have the courage of their convictions and refuse to
fight. He admitted that it would be difficult for them to do so because
they would be under orders and strict discipline, but if individual
soldiers were prepared to say "No" to the war, "they would be heroes in
my eyes".
To readjust Milton: "How unseemly it is and how dispiriting, when, into
the tongues of vociferous men, fate puts unmitigated tripe." When, in
the name of Services’ regulations, did personnel have a choice, moral or
legal, to opt out of the battle line? It was theatrically noble of
Shakespeare’s Henry V to tell his weary warriors before Agincourt: "He
which hath no stomach to this fight let him depart ... and crowns for
convoy put into his purse," but any British troops who suddenly decided
that the war they were in had become illegal and immoral, wanted to
fight only what they considered ethical conflicts and to leave the scene
pronto, would find that the Army took a near-sighted view of such
attitudes.
I asked an Army spokeswoman what disciplinary measures would be taken
against any who tried to follow Sheridan’s words, and was told that
soldiers in Iraq were professionals, not conscripts. They had chosen to
be in the armed forces and were paid to fight. They did an excellent job
and "are prepared to put their lives on the line".
True, although not the answer I sought. Neil Griffiths, a British
Legion, Scotland, spokesman said that anyone refusing to fight the enemy
would be likely to face severe disciplinary measures, including years in
a military detention barracks and a dishonourable discharge. Tough
punishment but compensated surely by the offenders’ knowledge that Mr
Sheridan considered them heroes.
Tommy Sheridan is a lively politician, with a disarming smile, who
presents his views with impressive incisiveness. In this case, knowing
the moral choices we Second World War service personnel never had, I say
that Tommy this and Tommy that is talking tommyrot. |
