It is destined to be the biggest criminal trial of the year and promises a potent mix of celebrity, politics, and allegations of sordid sex and lies.

Tommy Sheridan and his wife Gail are due in the dock at the High Court in Glasgow today to face claims they lied under oath during Mr Sheridan’s successful defamation case against the publishers of the News of the World in 2006.

If found guilty of perjury, they could each face a maximum of 10 years in jail, although sentences of two to three years are more usual.

More than 200 witnesses have been cited for the trial, which will be led by Scotland’s foremost legal minds, hired with a Legal Aid budget thought to be in the region of £500,000.

Scheduled for 60 days, it will be one of the longest-running cases of its kind in Scottish legal history.

It is likely many witnesses who gave evidence against Mr Sheridan during the original defamation case will be called back to court.

About 270 pieces of evidence will be filed for reference, some thought to be personal items seized by police during searches of the Sheridans’ home in Cardonald, Glasgow.

Mr Sheridan – a former Celebrity Big Brother contestant and Scottish Socialist MSP – was awarded £200,000 in damages in 2006 after News International failed to prove stories it printed about his involvement in group sex, swinger’s clubs and an extra-marital affair were true.

Mr Sheridan strenuously denied the allegations made against him. He sacked his legal team before representing himself – and winning against Rupert Murdoch’s media conglomerate. He is now studying to be a lawyer on a fast-track university course.

Following the result, Mr Sheridan triumphantly announced on the steps of the Court of Session in Edinburgh that the “working-class people” of the jury had been able to tell the difference between “truth and muck”.

Mr Sheridan faces two charges of perjury, the first that he tried to persuade a witness, Colin Fox, to lie in court.

At the time the first News Of The World article appeared, in November 2004, Mr Sheridan was the convener of the Scottish Socialist Party and Mr Fox was a key figure in the organisation.

Mr Fox is now leader, taking the post when Mr Sheridan was voted out of the job. The SSP no longer has any MSPs.

Mr Sheridan went on to found the Solidarity Party.

The second charge faced by the former MSP alleges he made false statements when he was a witness in the defamation action. Mrs Sheridan, an air stewardess and the mother of the couple’s five-year-old daughter, faces a charge that she, too, lied under oath.

At the end of the defamation case, Lord Turnbull warned that a perjury investigation might be necessary given the conflicting evidence from witnesses.

In October 2006, Lothian and Borders Police launched a perjury investigation.

Mr Sheridan was arrested more than a year later as he left a radio studio in Edinburgh where he broadcast his own show, Citizen Tommy. Following a police search of the Sheridans’ home, he was charged with the offence.

Three months later, Mrs Sheridan was charged with perjury, along with her father Angus Healy, 73, who also gave evidence during the defamation action.

Five other witnesses have also been charged with perjury offences.

The Crown Office said yesterday: “The Procurator-Fiscal at Edinburgh received a report concerning eight people in relation to alleged offences in July 2006.

Two of these people, Thomas Sheridan and Gail Sheridan, are due to stand trial at the High Court in Glasgow in relation to these allegations. The matter remains under consideration regarding others.”

The News of The World has suspended its appeal against the outcome of the defamation case pending the result of the criminal perjury trial.

Only the same rate as the rest of us.

£40,000 per year doesn't qualify you as "rich", Loki.

You know exactly who i'm talking about, and the amounts of tax they are (or in this case, aren't) paying.

How much tax are YOU paying?

Do you voluntarily pay extra tax because you think that the government does such a good job? No? Then why do you expect others to?

Do you think the government should crack down on tax avoidance even if it would result in the tax take being lowered overall? Or should they do whatever will result in maximised revenue?

Great article, Happ, thanks for that. So the top 10% of earners pay over half the total income tax revenue? Interesting.

How much tax are YOU paying?

Do you voluntarily pay extra tax because you think that the government does such a good job? No? Then why do you expect others to?

Do you think the government should crack down on tax avoidance even if it would result in the tax take being lowered overall? Or should they do whatever will result in maximised revenue?

Who do you suppose pays the majority of taxation in this country? People working at McDonalds?

I can't believe you just said that.

The 'rich' do pay the most into the coffers through tax. But that's not really the issue here, the 'super-rich' not paying their fair share is - the tycoons, aristocratic landowners, billionaires and those well on their way to being so, who believe that paying tax is optional for them. Your figures mean very little because that top 10% basically comprises everyone on the 40% tax band earning over £45,000-ish per year. That's not who anyone has a problem with. The majority of them will just be hard-working types who do an honest days work for an honest days pay like most of us. The fact of the matter is there are a small number of obscenely rich individuals, making up a tiny fraction of that top 1%, who pay barely (and sometimes literally) nothing in terms of personal tax, whilst in the real world, the rest of us have to pay our fair share on earnings, whether it be 22.5% or 40%. You can't possibly consider that to be in any way fair. Whether they argue that their businesses pay enough in corporation tax or they are special because they employ people is irrelevant.

Consider this report from a few years ago. 54 Billionaire's in the UK with a combined personal wealth of £126 Billion, paying less than £15M in income tax (with nearly 2/3rds of it coming from one individual), and a mere £75 Million in all personal taxes. How can you possibly justify that? All they're putting back into the economy is through their extravagant spending and living to excess anyway, so i don't think you have to worry too much about the country going into meltdown if they decided to bugger off.

I don't see what could be done about it. Labour had 13 years in power and never attempted to, which makes me think that it's basically impossible to do. How do you do it? Shoot them and take their money?

Even without legislation changes, sections of the media could take it upon themselves to highlight it more and campaign to try to shame some of them them into paying up instead of weaselling out of it. Attach a real stigma to the act of tax avoidance. Might not be all that successful immediately but it would certainly put pressure onto them

Disabled people will be "pushed even further backwards" in society as they are hit with more than £9 billion in welfare cuts over the next five years, a think-tank has warned.

The government's proposed benefit reforms will see 3.5 million disabled people lose about £9.2bn of support by 2015, according to a report from Demos.

Ministers' plans to move disabled people on to Job Seekers Allowance will account for half the losses, it said.

The report, titled Destination Unknown, argued that planned welfare reforms would result in more disabled people being trapped in long-term unemployment - costing the taxpayer far more than at present.

Demos warned that by 2015, families with disabled children would lose more than £3,000 each, and disabled adults whose partner is a full-time carer would also lose around £3,000.

Former Labour minister Kitty Ussher, director of Demos, said: "The emerging evidence is that the only way to get those furthest from the labour market back into work is through individual client-led support.

"Cutting the welfare bill is attractive to government in the current climate, but without better support for individuals it threatens to just exclude people further, rather than transforming their lives for the better."

Richard Hawkes, chief executive of disability charity Scope, said the figures were "alarming".

"With such dramatic losses on the horizon, how will the government be able to 'protect' the people who need support the most?" he said.

Destination Unknown is probably the name that should be given to quite a few of these Government initiatives.

@King of Swing what makes you think that the Lib Dems are finished as a political party?

David Mundell, Scotland’s only Conservative MP, has been reported to the head of the prosecution service for breaking electoral law.

The Lord Advocate, Elish Angiolini, last week received a fiscal’s report on the MP, and is now considering whether he should be charged.

Mundell, 48, a Scotland Office minister, has admitted breaking the law by overspending on the last leg of his General Election campaign – a potential criminal offence punishable by a £5000 fine and expulsion from Parliament.

However, the former lawyer insists the error – first exposed by a Sunday Herald investigation – was an innocent mistake. Mundell and his election agent, Joe Dawson, recently petitioned the Court of Session to correct misleading official returns from the election, that the MP had previously signed off as “complete and accurate”.

The pair asked to be excused from legal consequences of breaking election law, a request that requires the Lord Advocate to waive a prosecution. The Crown Office yesterday confirmed the case was “under consideration”, prompting Labour to demand Mundell be stripped of his ministerial role.

Russell Brown, the Labour MP for Dumfries and Galloway, urged the Prime Minister to intervene.

“It doesn’t get much more serious than the Lord Advocate personally considering your case,” he said. “Surely now, with the case of his only Scottish MP sitting on the desk of Scotland’s most senior prosecutor, David Cameron has no choice but to remove David Mundell from his ministerial responsibilities for elections in Scotland. Failure to do so would not only be a grave error of judgement but a significant weakness of his leadership.”

Mundell spent more than £40,000 defending his slender 1738-vote majority in Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale at the election. In April, he spent £681 on a newspaper advert that put him £466 over the £11,814 spending cap for the last leg of his campaign. The bill was wrongly described in his official returns as pre-election spending.

The petition to the Court of Session admits Mundell signed off the returns without checking the underlying invoices for himself, and had relied on Dawson, a first-time election agent, and Tory Party staff to do it for him.

The error was an “accidental miscalculation”, not a deliberate attempt to mislead, said the petition. After the Sunday Herald revealed the error in July, a Labour-supporting constituent reported Mundell to the police.

Election watchdogs at the UK’s Electoral Commission also supplied a report to police. After a 10-week investigation, detectives from the Dumfries and Galloway force interviewed Mundell on September 27. It is understood the police then reported their findings to the local procurator fiscal, who in turn sent a report to the Lord Advocate.

The Lord Advocate is expected to give her opinion later this month.

A Conservative spokesman said: “It is right that due process applies.”

Tommy Sheridan has dismissed the QC defending him against perjury charges and will now represent himself for the remainder of the trial.

The former Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) MSP was being represented by Maggie Scott QC.

Judge Lord Bracadale has now adjourned the trial at the High Court in Glasgow until Thursday.

Mr Sheridan and his wife Gail, both 46, deny committing perjury during his successful defamation case in 2006.

The former MSP won £200,000 damages over claims about his private life in the News of the World.

Lord Bracadale told the jury of the news in what he described as a "sudden development".

The judge said: "I thank you for your patience. You will see Miss Scott and her junior counsel are no longer here.

"Mr Sheridan has instructed his solicitor to withdraw counsel instructions. Mr Sheridan will now conduct his own defence.

"An accused person is perfectly entitled to do so. He will continue to have the support of his solicitor who will render appropriate assistance.

The former politician had asked for some time to prepare himself for the case and the judge said this was a "reasonable" request.

Lord Bracadale adjourned the trial until Thursday when evidence is expected to resume.

This is not the first time the former MSP has parted company with his lawyers.

He sacked his legal team during the original defamation action, choosing instead to represent himself.

In the run up to the perjury case, Mr Sheridan also dismissed Donald Findlay QC, one of the country's most high-profile defence lawyers.

His decision to sack Miss Scott, who defended Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, appears to indicate that he was unhappy with how she had handled evidence.

Mr Sheridan has, however, retained solicitor Aamer Anwar.

It is alleged that Mr Sheridan made false statements as a witness in his defamation action against the News of the World on 21 July 2006.

He also denies another charge of attempting to persuade a witness to commit perjury shortly before the 23-day legal action got under way.

Mrs Sheridan denies making false statements on 31 July 2006, after being sworn in as a witness in the civil jury trial at the Court of Session in Edinburgh.

The trial is due to last between two and three months and is expected to become the longest perjury case in Scottish legal history.

Ah Demos, that famous Labour think tank. No agenda there whatsoever especially when there is a new leader to galvanise support around. I under stand what they are saying and am prepared for the switch. Would be interesting to know if this research was done before or after the Universal Payment was mooted.

Just caught the news and let me get this straight the ConDems basically want to allow Universities to charge what they want?

EDIT

Just caught the headlines and its actually a review by some guy I have never heard of so I dont know if the ConDems would actually go through with it but I would love to see the Lib Dems (who lets face it would savage such a proposial if they were not in Government) suger coat this on QT if such a propsial went through.

I fear that with increased thresholds for paying loans back, you are just going to end up with more lending and little repayment. Earn 21k chance would be a fine thing and that's on the new style loans. On the old ones its c 30k before payback.

There is quite a long winded analysis here

No it's not.. According to the article it's 15k. I thought it was higher than that, but I definitely started paying back when I got my first proper job, which was well below 30k.

Pre 1998 it is!

I took that figure from my last deferment letter which states I have to earn 2,284 per month after tax to be eligible to make repayments.

Not going to happen any time soon.

I thought Higher Education was still free pre-98..?

I thought Higher Education was still free pre-98..?

Speaking as a working person I find it utterly patronising whenever an MP says "we are all in this together" or "we all have to feel the pinch" so I can see where even some council estate rat is coming from when it comes to the Cameron's.

Most MP's never mind the PM are not in the same position as someone like myself who is earning less then 16k a year nor is my wage proped up by a vast expenses and allowance system.

So like fuck are we in this together and we never will be.

THE CABINET RICH LIST

1. Lord Strathclyde £10m - Leader of the House of Lords, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster

The 2nd Baron Strathclyde, more normally addressed as Tom, is wealthy even by the aristocratic standards of the Lords. The half-Belgian peer owns a lucrative slice of his family’s estate management company, Auchendrane Estates, has numerous private directorships and a £2.3million house in Westminster.

2. Philip Hammond £7.5m - Secretary of State for Transport

Hammond had been expected to take the No2 position at the Treasury until the coalition agreement was struck, but there is little need for him to make personal economies. His stake in property company Castlemead has been estimated to be worth up to £6million in shares and dividends. He also co-owns a £1million house in Westminster and a £400,000 home in Woking, Surrey.

3. George Osborne £4.6m - Chancellor of the Exchequer

The youngest Chancellor for more than a century holds a £2million stake in his father’s luxury wallpaper company, Osborne & Little, and lives in a £2million family home in London’s Notting Hill. His constituency property in Tatton adds another £600,000.

4. Jeremy Hunt £4.5m - Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport

Hunt, a lambada-dancing party high-flier, owns a stake in the educational publisher Hotcourses estimated at nearly £3million. He also owns a property in Surrey, a house in Hammersmith, West London, and a half-share of a holiday home in Italy.

5. David Cameron £4m - Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury and Minister for the Civil Service

The PM and his wife both come from wealthy backgrounds and enjoy substantial property assets of their own: their London home has been valued at £2.7million and their constituency house at £1million. Mrs Cameron’s work as the creative director of Smythson, the upmarket stationers, earned her a £300,000 bonus. Both are in line to inherit fortunes from their parents: the combined wealth of the Camerons’ parents has been put as high as £30million.

6. Chris Huhne £3.5m - Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change

The former journalist and City economist is known as ‘nine homes Huhne’ – he has five buy-to-lets in London and Oxford, a family home in the capital and a house in his Eastleigh constituency. He also has a share of a holiday home in France, while his wife, Vicky Pryce, a senior civil servant, owns a property in Greece.

7. Dominic Grieve £3m - Attorney General

Dry-as-dust barrister Grieve has built up shareholdings in companies including Royal Bank of Scotland which are thought to be worth nearly £1million. He also owns a £1.3million home in Hammersmith and Fulham, and a rental property in the capital.

8. Francis Maude £3m -Minister for the Cabinet Office, Paymaster General

Party grandee Maude owns two buy-to-let nest-egg properties in London and France, and a valuable family home in Sussex. Until David Cameron’s crackdown on his team’s second jobs last year, he was a member of Barclays Bank’s Asia-Pacific Advisory Committee. He also has a number of shareholdings.

9. William Hague £2.5m - Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs

Canny Hague’s property interests in London and his Yorkshire constituency are worth at least £1million, while his earnings from the after-dinner circuit – at up to £25,000 a speech – private directorships and book contracts add at least another £1.5million.

10. Andrew Mitchell £2m - Secretary of State for International Development

Former merchant banker Mitchell retains lucrative interests from his time in the City, including various property shareholdings. He also owns a home in London worth
£1.6million.

11. David Laws £1m-2m estimate - Chief Secretary to the Treasury

Laws is said to have made so much money in the City that he was able to retire at the age of 28, after betting $1billion of his company’s money on the value of the dollar – and guessing the right way. He displays few public signs of this reputed wealth, apart from a house in France and a £400,000 cottage in his Somerset constituency. He keeps any shareholdings well-concealed.

12. Nick Clegg £1.9m - Deputy Prime Minister

Like his coalition partner Cameron, Clegg’s father made millions in the City. While Clegg senior has an impressive international property portfolio worth several million pounds, the Lib Dem leader’s own wealth comes from a £1.5million property in Putney and a constituency house in Sheffield.

13. David Willetts £1.9m - Minister of State (Universities and Science) Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

Willetts, who is married to the successful professional artist Sarah Butterfield, derived a useful income from private directorships until the Cameron crackdown. He owns a London house worth £1.3million,
a property in Hampshire worth £300,000 and a rental property.

14. Theresa May £1.6m - Secretary of State for the Home Department and Minister for Women and Equality

Vicar’s daughter May owns a £1million home in London with her husband Philip, and a home in Berkshire worth an estimated £600,000.

15. Oliver Letwin £1.6m - Minister of State, Cabinet Office

Former Rothschild banker Letwin, the Old Etonian son of academics, holds numerous investments from his time in the City. He also owns a £700,000 constituency home in Somerset and an £800,000 home in London.

16. Caroline Spelman £1.5m - Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Spelman, a former sugar beet commodity secretary for the National Farmers Union, co-owns a biotechnology business with her husband, has a constituency home in Dorridge, West Midlands, and a property near Westminster.

17. Owen Paterson £1.5m - Secretary of State for Northern Ireland

Paterson, who is married to Rose Ridley, daughter of the 4th Viscount Ridley, has a second life as the owner of a large country estate on which he lets buildings and agricultural land.

18. Cheryl Gillan £1.5m - Secretary of State for Wales

Gillan, the privately-educated daughter of an Army officer, owes her fortune to the three homes she owns in the Home Counties.

19. Kenneth Clarke £1m+ - Lord Chancellor, Secretary of State for Justice

Cigar-smoking Government veteran Clarke has accumulated shareholdings in companies such as BP, BAT and Diageo which were recently valued at more than £600,000. He owns a £500,000 house in his Nottinghamshire constituency.

20. Sir George Young £1m - Leader of the House of Commons, Lord Privy Seal

Aristocratic Sir George, known as the ‘bicycling baronet’, owns a £650,000 family home in Penton Mewsey, Hampshire, and a £500,000 flat in London.

21. Iain Duncan Smith £1m - Secretary of State for Work and Pensions

Former Tory leader Duncan Smith owes his apparent wealth to his wife, Betsy. He lives in a £1million house provided by her father, the 5th Baron Cottesloe, which appears to be tied up in a series of complex family trusts.

22. Michael Gove £1m - Secretary of State for Education

Close Cameron aide Gove owns two properties – a London house and a home in his Surrey constituency – together worth over £1million. Until entering Government, he also earned at least £70,000 a year on top of his MP’s salary from journalism and book-writing.

23. Dr Liam Fox £1m - Secretary of State for Defence

Dr Fox is another Cabinet Minister who has benefited from the two-home life lived by many MPs, owning a Central London property and a large house in Somerset which combined are worth £1million.

Wish I was a millionaire member of the Cabinet.

So what? They're rich! Good for them - it doesn't really matter. They should be judged by the decisions they make rather than their bank balances and if affluent colleagues wish to treat them all to a nice party then so be it. There's no way I'd want to do the job and the should enjoy the odd perk here and there - particularly as it's not taxpayer's money.

On the Universities issue I don't see them implementing the unlimited fees cap but I'd be very dissapointed if they did. It's just not fair to put the best Universities out of reach of the intelligent but less wealthy families. It's just utterly wrong in fact. I'd actually like to see far less University places available but have the ones that are fully funded with grants etc included. There's just too many people going to Uni. If there's jobs available for all these graduates then great but far too many people go and then in no way use their defree in a meaningful way. Often because it's pointless. Degrees like history of art, art, psychology, sports science, marketting should be vastly cut back upon. (Especially psychology - what a waste of time). We need to encourage more engineering, chemistry, physics, maths, computer science etc. Things that will actually benefit people in our modern and hi tech economy.

If you were, you may have even been invited to the exclusive party they had before they announced the benefit cuts.

They were living it up with bottles of wine costing £1,500 per bottle, and managed to work their way throught a drinks bill that came to something like £14,000.

In all, it cost around £25,000 for the evenings party, which was laid on by a former Tory treasurer.

Tough times all round indeed.

I have no problem with people having money just dont expect me to buy into their "we all feel the pinch/have to make sacrifices" bollocks and that goes for all politicians and not just the ones in Government.

Do you have something against people with money David?

No, I have something against people with money telling the regular Joe in the street that we all have to make sacrifices, when what they really mean is that we have to make sacrifices, while they don't.

I hate David Cameron with a passion but all I remember him saying from the debates is how as a country we are going to go through a difficult few years and we will all have to bear the brunt of it. I dont remember him saying he's going to lower his quality of lifestyle.