Monday, September 22, 2008

The John Reid Train Will Not Leave the Station

Ben Brogan reckons it's John Reid who is feared by the Tories. He and other political journos keep hinting that Reid may well be up for a spectacular comeback. I hate to disappoint them but they are whistling in the wind. It just ain't gonna happen. Trust me. I have reason to know.

Oooh, that was cryptic, wasn't it?

26 comments:

  1. Is this a guest entry by Guido? What with the innuendo and italic coloured writing...?

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  2. Ben Brogan may be right, word on the street is that a national newspaper has a bombshell story on John Reid, ready to go, if he sticks his head above the parapet

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  3. A Scottish ex-member of the Communist Party, that must really scare the Tories!

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  4. John Reid is a political heavyweight with equal experience to Brown (the only man with the 'skills' to get on with the job, that the people want him to get on with, (yawn)). In addition hes not afraid to talk frankly about issues and make bold decisions. If I remember right he is Browns arch-nemesis and Blairs Mr. Fixit?

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  5. Anything to do with the gear the police found in his house?

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  6. What's your "reason to know", Iain? Regular readers are used to facts and good analysis not hints and rumours so I suggest you either come clean about this "reason to know" or stop being "cryptic". As one familiar with the inner machinations of the PLP I have to say Dr Reid, formidable though he is, stands about as much chance of being the next Labour leader as Ronald Reagan.

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  7. Reid has a tranche of Ugandan issues. He won't come back because they would go live and spoil his day.

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  8. I heard that John Reid's wife put her foot down - "It's your politics or me, it can't be both!" and he will be retiring from Parliament at the next election..

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  9. It just ain't gonna happen. Trust me. I have reason to know.

    Oooh, that was cryptic, wasn't it?


    Well, I've never seen you in the same room together.

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  10. Anything to do with Dawn Primarolo? I thought that was all out in the open now...

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  11. To coin a phrase 'Don't come here with half a story..'

    Put up or shut up, as it were...

    Any why all the secrets about John 'the heid' Reid - there is plenty about him which is well known.

    And if McCain can have a bate occasionally, I don't see anything which Reid has on him as a 'showstopper'...

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  12. Just look at the circumstances of the sad death of the first Mrs. Reid

    the story is that the former Head Tecaher of Bannockburn H//S took to drink because of her husband's philandering in London

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  13. It's bad enough having all these Scots around, but John Reid is far worse than that. He's a Glaswegian.

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  14. Correct. Reid has no interest in politics. He's enjoying being Chairman of Celtic too much and all the other business contacts that creates for him.

    The Reid conspiracy line is a Brownite red herring because they don't want people to see that the Labour party is crumbling.

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  15. Iain, you're missing a massive story on Miliband that's broken on the BBC website.

    He's been overheard telling an aide he "couldn't have gone any further. It would have been a Heseltine moment."

    The cat's out of the bag.

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  16. Hey spoil sport, don't knock it down just yet.
    I was one of those running with the Reid story last week and found a great cartoon to show his comeback!

    http://theorangepartyblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/nightmare-on-downing-street.html

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  17. johnny sauchiehall-street.

    He's not a Glaswegian. He's from Lanarkshire. Born in Bellshill. Educated in Coatbridge.

    Close but no roll-up. But not as bad as the metro-hack who also described George Galloway as a Glaswegian.

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  18. That tapeworm Reid joined the Communist Party the day the USSR invaded Czechoslovakia, the evil git. Some moral compass there, huh?

    What a nasty bit of work. He's no more fit for office than Martin Bormann would be if he were still alive. Nazi = Communist = all the same = odious piece of scum.

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  19. Is your "reason to know" anything to do with Reid's having bought Broon's Sybian off him second hand and Broon finding out he diddled him on the price?

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  20. AIUI the bombshell story is drunken unwanted advances to Labour MPs (such as Primarolo) whilst on junkets - which is why he doesn't drink any more

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  21. You're right of course Iain. If Reid seriously wanted the job, he'd have stood against Gordon. Okay, so he'd have lost, but by virtue of having stood, he would by now be the obvious alternative candidate that the plotters have so far lacked - an interesting counterfactual there.

    If, as some posters suggest, the truth is that Reid has been held back by a giant skeleton in his cupboard related to his drinking days, then I think that's rather sad. The career of Alastair Campbell shows that people can become genuinely reformed characters after giving up drinking and what was happening in Reid's life 20 years ago has no real relevance to the kind of man - or the kind of potential leader -he is today.

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  22. Would Mr Dale like to be the subject of similar snide cryptic innuendo?

    If the blogosphere (just like financial markets) doesn't self regulate against such garbage then it shouldn't be surprised if someone else does.

    Perhaps Mr Dale should speculate what would have happened to the political careers of Winston Chruchill, Lloyd George and countless others if they had been subject to gossip of a similar nature.

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  23. Is Linford kidding? Campbell is quite obviously a recovering alcoholic, i.e. he's still mentally unhinged.

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  24. Broon's Talking Bawgie said... "Campbell is quite obviously a recovering alcoholic, i.e. he's still mentally unhinged."

    Alastair Campbell has been teetotal for 20 years.

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  25. Surely he John Reid is waiting to be called as a character witness by his former drinking pal Radovan Radovan Karadžić, at his war crimes trial in the Hague ?

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