For the first time in living memory the Hootsman actually defied convention, alleged threats of legal nastiness and reported yer actual bona fide-oops-Labour-in-the-shitter-news. News, which I hasten to add that the blogosphere has been voraciously whispering les gros mots about, behind cupped palms, since Monday evening, that Mr Purcell's stress, has been attributable to an alleged pharmaceutical dependency.
Jack Irvine's task was made even more Herculean when STV reported today that Mr Purcell went AWOL from Castle Craig Rehab centre on Sunday afternoon and told their gobsmacked audience that our dear chums at Lothian and Border were called in to poke about the bushes looking for a rather lost, bewildered and somewhat dis-inhibited Mr Purcell. If Castle Craig were a psychiatric institution, rather than a 12 step addiction centre, most patients would have been sectioned under the mental health act, and there would be no need to call police for a patient, unless of course when there is a significant danger of self harm.
As much sympathy as I have for any poor soul dependent on medication, legal or otherwise, to get through the day, I honestly feel, the time-line to Mr Purcell's implosion needs further investigation from our doughty press pack.
Just exactly was said at Gordon Brown's table to Mr Purcell at last Thursday's Labour fund-raising dinner at the Glasgow Hilton, when according to all the impartial Labour supporters and Rangers manager Walter Smith, who were in attendance, that Mr Purcell was 'at the top of his game'? What was it that made him, a few short hours later, express a desire to get the flip out of Dodge? Were the raffle tickets so eye blisteringly expensive that Mr Purcell, according to Paul Hutcheon, had to be 'escorted' home? Who were the MSP's with whom he had 'convivial' talks on the Friday morning? Did they not notice anything untoward in his presumably agitated state? Is Mr Purcell paying for Media House representation, and Levy &McRae defamation specialists from his own pocket or could it be that the Labour Party or friends of the Labour Party are dipping into their own deep pockets? Who overruled the rather expensively assembled 'Team Glasgow' who wanted to come clean and fess all? How long has Mr Purcell, suffered from this alleged dependency, did he ever self medicate in the Council Chambers or whilst on Council business? Does Glasgow City Council have a mandatory drug testing system for its employees, does this apply to elected members or merely officers and other lower paid employees? Where exactly did Mr Purcell procure the pharmaceutical in question?
One presumes, with a desperate desire to be truthful and transparent, that the new leader of Glasgow City Council will immediately instigate an investigation into these and sundry other questions of nefarious goings on at the City Chambers.
Naturally, in a normal independent country, a free press would be asking these questions rather than swallowing the cheap party line of praising some chap down on his hunkers and predicting his meteoric return a few weeks after defeating his inner demons.
Come on the press pack, you can pursue other people with great vim, gusto and template cut and paste reporting, how about doing some actual digging and living up to the once exalted title of 'journalist'?
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