Update: Stephen Purcell

An update to our earlier post yesterday regarding the suspension of former Glasgow City Council leader, Stephen Purcell. After Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy stated that he had been suspended from the Labour Party on The Politics Show on Sunday.

A Labour spokesman when questioned by Debate is Free insisted that Jim Murphy had made a mistake during the interview and that Murphy had thought that he was being questioned on shamed Labour PPC Stuart McLennan who was suspended from the party after a number of inapproriate comments on Twitter. It was this confusion that caused Jim Murphy to wrongly state that Stephen Purcell had been suspended from Labour.

When questioned regarding the possiblity of Purcell being suspended after the prospect of two seperate police investigations into the former council leader and activities at Glasgow City Council the Labour spokesman said that the Labour Party's stance on Purcell was quite clear and there was no need to comment further.

Rumour-mill: Stephen Purcell suspended from the Labour party.

Sources have said that Stephen Purcell has now been suspended from the Labour party after a month of revelations about the ex-council leaders private life.

Both Purcell and the Labour party in Glasgow came under heavy criticism after it was revealed that Purcell, who have been council leader for nearly five years had taken to drinking heavily and also took cocaine which he later admitted in an interview with the Scottish Sun.

It was these revelations that landed Purcell in deeper water with the Sunday Herald revealing that Strathclyde Police were considering the possibility of speaking to Mr Purcell about drug offences as well as alleged impropriety regarding taxpayer funds. With friends, political allies and others being given thousands of pounds to run Glasgow City Councils various arms-length companies.


We shall keep you updated as the story develops.