TOMMY Sheridan yesterday turned on one of his closest allies, denouncing the current leader of the Scottish Socialists as he stepped up his efforts to retake control of the party.
Despite recently giving Colin Fox his full support, Mr Sheridan said he had absolutely no confidence in him and said he lacked the "steel" to lead the SSP out of its present crisis.
In response, Mr Fox said his predecessor lacked the ability to work with other people and would "break the SSP apart" if he was re-elected as its leader.
Mr Sheridan's attempt to destroy Mr Fox suggests he sees him as the biggest obstacle to retaking the leadership at the party's conference in October.
Last night, the SSP's Orkney branch was due to pass a motion calling for Mr Sheridan to stand. As Mr Fox is top of the SSP's regional list in the Lothians for the 2007 election, it is thought Mr Sheridan's supporters may try to deselect him.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article