Events | 2010.03.07
Spectacular fall of Stephen Purcell shocks Scotland's political world
An in-depth look at events surrounding the resignation of Glasgow\'s young council leader
Glasgow\'s Hilton Hotel two Thursdays ago was playing host to a fundraising event for Labour and the rollcall of the party nomenclature had been taken. There were very few absentees. Labour\'s hegemony remains absolute in the west of Scotland and familiar figures from business, entertainment, leisure, sport and the media were all present and correct. It should have been a relaxing occasion for Stephen Purcell, the city\'s young council leader.
A youthful and single man, he thrives on these occasions and enjoys the company of those who direct the social and business life of his beloved city. In normal circumstances he would have been basking in the acclaim of a party which had come to acknowledge him as a genuine contender for future first minister and who had watched in admiration at some adroit recent manoeuvring on the national stage.
On that evening though, observers encountered him in a subdued mood and he left earlier than would normally have been expected. It was the last time most of them would see of him again for the foreseeable future. Within four days, he had resigned as council leader. Last Friday he announced that he was withdrawing from all political activity and would no longer be representing his constituents in Blairdardie in the west of the city.
The events of the 72 hours that elapsed between his departure from the Hilton and his resignation have attracted fevered speculation. Glasgow\'s citizens normally need no encouragement to turn into forensic scientists, political analysts and private detectives and last week it seemed that most of them had a theory about the most spectacular downfall in modern Scottish politics. A senior political media observer told me: "I\'ve heard more theories about this than on Lord Lucan\'s disappearance and the kidnapping of Shergar."
What seems clear though, is that the 37-year-old Purcell has suffered a major breakdown caused by acute stress and anxiety. The suddenness of his collapse means that the speculation about its causes will continue for some time. He himself will not be making any comments about it. He is currently believed to be with relatives in Donegal and is not expected back in his native city any time soon.
The first ripples of the tsunami that has now engulfed Glasgow\'s Labour party began to appear last Friday. Purcell abruptly cancelled two public engagements scheduled for that day at very short notice. Within hours a group of his closest council allies and advisers, who had become alarmed at his tone in telephone conversations, began to envisage a worst-case scenario. They visited him at his home in Broomhill and found their friend in a fragile and vulnerable state.
They quickly devised a damage-limitation strategy designed to leave a door open for him to resume his political career at a future date. For what was painfully clear to all of them was that he was in no fit state to operate as leader of a £10bn local authority. Crucially, they drafted a statement that would have made mention of "a chemical dependency". They felt that a sympathetic and sophisticated electorate, already well-disposed towards this charismatic young leader, would cut him the slack to retreat from public life for a while and then hand him an opportunity to resume it in the near future.
But another group of people were equally concerned with Purcell\'s state: his family. They were with him throughout last weekend and were alarmed at the prospect of him being induced to sign off a statement about his health while clearly being in a reduced state of mind and under heavy sedation. One source very close to the Purcell family said last Thursday morning: "Stephen\'s brother was not happy with what the council press office was proposing and persuaded Stephen to give him power of attorney over all his affairs. He decided to seek immediate advice from the family lawyer, Peter Watson."
It was a fateful but entirely understandable position for the family to take. The Purcells felt that the wording being proposed by the council press chiefs would immediately give rise to speculation about illegal substance abuse when, according to the same source, "the problem was that Stephen had formed a Valium dependency as he struggled to cope with the huge demands of running a local authority with a budget of £10bn".
Watson is one of the two top media lawyers in Scotland and has close links to one of the country\'s most prominent media management firms run by Jack Irvine, a former editor of the Sun in Scotland, and with a formidable track record in successfully managing bad news. Purcell had also made an SOS call to a friend who was prominent in the Scottish business community, who also advised him to seek independent press and legal representation. Purcell\'s closest council confidantes were aghast. They believe Irvine to be a Tory party supporter and had always viewed him with suspicion after he had played a prominent role 10 years ago in the campaign to keep the controversial Section 28 law that forbade discussion of homosexuality in Scottish schools. They were also understandably anxious that to have Irvine handle the media firestorm was to invite all sorts of speculation about what had contributed to the council leader\'s breakdown. As one source put it: "I\'m not saying we could have killed the story, but we could have disclosed it in a more orderly fashion."
Last Monday night a handful of journalists began taking calls saying that Purcell had resigned. At a full meeting of the Labour group the following day, the resignation was formally announced. Later the same day Colin Edgar, the council\'s communications chief, hosted a press conference. It was clear that Edgar, a close friend and political ally of Purcell, had slept very little in the previous 48 hours. He also announced that Purcell\'s legal team had silenced the press department by threatening action against any council officers found to have commented on the medical condition of their former leader. In effect, Edgar, a highly regarded media handler, had been cut out of the loop by his old friend.
Nevertheless, reaction was universally sympathetic. Even Alex Salmond, the first minister, who had become embroiled in a bitter war of words with Purcell over the cancelling of funding for the Glasgow Airport rail link, spoke warmly of his abilities.
On the streets and in the wine bars adjacent to the city chambers the suggested reasons for Purcell\'s resignation were growing ever more lurid. There was said to be video footage showing him in a compromising situation and that he had been blackmailed. Most of this though, had its origin in old-fashioned homophobia. Purcell, as a young, single, gay man, was a full participant in the Glasgow social scene.
Most Fridays he hosted an informal "lunch club" attended by prominent business and media figures. It helped him take the pulse of a city that travels at 100mph, 24 hours a day. Among his closest circle of friends are restaurateurs, publicans, journalists and businessmen. Among the old guard on the council however, he was regarded as an over-confident gilded popinjay who had destroyed their influence and replaced them with a coterie of sharp-suited, modernising activists cast in their leader\'s mould. Some were only too happy to whisper innuendo about his private life.
In the middle of the week, Purcell\'s media advisers were forced to confirm that he had received treatment for a few days at Castle Craig, a private facility in the Borders specialising in drug and alcohol dependency. The following day however, they produced a letter from a psychiatrist at Castle Craig saying that Purcell was not being treated for any chemical dependency. The story was now running out of control.
The Scotsman subsequently revealed the contents of the council\'s original preferred statement that talked of a chemical dependency. Watson responded with a complaint that this was a breach of the data protection act. Even before Purcell formally announced his complete withdrawal from public life his closest friends knew that his career was finished for the foreseeable future.
It was at around 5pm in the tearooms of Glasgow city chambers on Friday and a group of Purcell\'s closest council colleagues had gathered to review the fallout for what one of them said was "the worst week of my political life". Each of them revealed, in turn, what it was that had attracted them to politics and public life. "It was good to remind ourselves that the fight for social justice and against poverty goes on. And that the most important thing for Stephen Purcell is that he regains his full health." Others though, while wishing the former leader a full recovery, nonetheless feel that the voting public needs to be given full disclosure of what led to his breakdown.
Those who discount the idea of Purcell ever returning to public life may wish to muse on the career of Alastair Campbell, the last high-profile political figure to suffer a breakdown. A few years later he was, effectively, running most of Tony Blair\'s cabinet.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/mar/07[...]glasgow-council-leader-resigns
