"John Reid must not become leader of the Labour party. This pugnacious product of the Lanarkshire Labour badlands is temperamentally unsuited to the role of prime minister. He is an aggressive and unstable character who thrives on confrontation and conspiracy. The thought of John Reid with his finger on the nuclear button is frankly terrifying.
This is the politician who thought it was appropriate to spend three days in a luxury hotel with Radovan Karadzic. He famously punched a House of Commons attendant in 1991 during his years as a violent alcoholic. But giving up the bottle didn't tame his temper. He nearly came to blows with the late Donald Dewar - no pugilist he - over the so-called "lobbygate affair" in 1999. The next first minister, Henry McLeish, described Reid as a "patronising bastard".
Reid's son Kevin, who working for the firm Beattie Media, had been secretly taped boasting of his access to ministers. Kevin Reid's subsequent employment as a parliamentary researcher led to the astonishing confrontation between the then Northern Ireland secretary and the parliamentary standards commissioner, Elizabeth Filkin.
She accused John Reid of intimidating witnesses and attempting to undermine her inquiries. She even had tape recordings of Reid browbeating the former general secretary of the Scottish Labour party, Alex Rowley over his evidence.
Ms Filkin - who subsequently resigned - said "the conduct of Dr Reid caused serious and increasing concern" and it has continued to do so. He has been in eight ministerial posts in his post-alcoholic career, each more disastrous than the last."
Don't sit on the fence, Iain.
No comments:
Post a Comment