The Leader of Glasgow City Council, Gordon Matheson, is said to have been reported to prosecutors by police for allegedly committing a sex act in a public place. This is said to have been in a car park in Cathcart, with the other participant a man of 38.
Mr Matheson later said he had been ‘having an affair’ [?] with a former lover, cheating on his partner and had ‘not lived up to his own standards’.
Following the publication of the allegations and the Council Leader’s response, there has been a sort of political paralysis.
The SNP, who had wanted but failed to take control in Glasgow, do not want to be seen to be using an incident like this for political gain. They are saying it is not their concern and that what is at issue are the aspects of the political management of the city with which they disagree.
Their position is that they have ‘no wish to comment on Mr Matheson’s private life’.
The Labour party, whose caucus Mr Matheson leads in Glasgow City Council, will only say, through group whip Alastair Watson, that: ‘This is a private matter and a tragic personal issue for Gordon Matheson.’
While those who are right now losing family members in the disaster of the Algerian hostage taking would hardly see Mr Matherson’s situation as ‘a tragic personal issue’, both political parties are quite wrong to dismiss this as a ‘private matter’ in Mr Matheson’s ‘private life’.
The heart of the incident – not now to be prosecuted for lack of, shall we say, hard evidence that a crime was committed – is that it was a public matter and, in every way, in Mr Matheson’s public life.
The gender of his partner in the act is irrelevant – but may well contribute to the paralysis of politicians in knowing what to say.
What is relevant is the indiscipline in his own public conduct of one of the most powerful political figures in Scotland, leader of its largest city; and of his carelessness for public decency.
The Labour Party are said to be unwilling, for political reasons, to replace the council leader. In supporting the need for public decency, they have no choice.
