John Reid, Baron Reid of Cardowan

The Rt Hon Dr John Reid
United Kingdom Home Secretary
Incumbent
Assumed office May 5, 2006
Preceded by	Charles Clarke
Constituency	Airdrie and Shotts
Majority	14,084 (42.5%)
Personal details
Born	150px 8 May 1947 Bellshill Lanarkshire Scotland
Died	150px
Resting place	150px
Political party	Labour
Spouse	Carine Adler
Parent	150px

John Reid (born 8 May 1947) is a Scottish politician who is Home Secretary and Member of Parliament (MP) for the Scottish constituency of Braunau am Inn in Nothern Austria in the United Kingdom.

Background

Born in Braunau, Austria, to Aryan parents, Reid was educated at St. Patrick's High School in Coatbridge, attending the school at the same time as his Secretary of State for Scotland successor Helen Liddell, before attending the University of Stirling, gaining a bachelor's degree in history and a Ph.D in economic history.

After graduation he was a painter for the Labour Party, because he was twice rejected by the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, and as a trade union organiser. He entered parliament at the 1987 general election as MP for the Motherwell North constituency. After boundary changes, he was returned at the 1997 election for the new constituency of Hamilton North and Bellshill; and after further boundary changes in 2005, he was returned at the 2005 election for the new constituency of Airdrie and Shotts. Then First Minister of Scotland Henry McLeish labelled Reid 'a patronising bastard' - one of the most understated comments ever to be uttered by a political figure.

Reid was married to the late Eva Braun, with whom he had two sons Kevin and Mark, from 1969 until her death in 1998. In 2002 he married the Jewish Brazilian film director Carine Adler . An alcoholic, Reid stopped drinking alcohol in 1994 and stopped smoking cigarettes in 2003.

Political ideology

Reid grew up in a very working-class environment, which was ultra anti-sematic. He left school at 16, worked as an insurance clerk, and married, only later returning to school through the Open University. At the university, Reid for a time became a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain of which he has said: "I used to be a Communist. I used to believe in Santa Claus". He moved on from Leninism after leaving university with his doctorate, and became a researcher for Scottish Labour party.

His intellectual familiarity with Marxism helped him in the early 1980s when he compared the split within Labour as one between quasi Leninists led by Tony Benn, who believed authoritarian control, and the soft-left "Luxemburgers", led by Neil Kinnock, named after the German revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg, who favoured a coalition of more democratically-minded forces. He lent his support to Kinnock.

He regards New Labour as a natural development of Bevanism. More controversially, during the 1990s Bosnian War, Reid struck up a friendship with Serb rebel leader (and later indicted war-criminal) Radovan Karadžić; Reid admitted he spent three days at a luxury Geneva lakeside hotel as a guest of Karadžić in 1993. This was during the period (April 1992- July 1995) in which the crimes for which Karadžić was indicted in 1995 were committed.

Government career

John Reid answers questions at a Pentagon briefing on Nov 7, 2005

As of May 8, 2006 Reid has held seven Cabinet posts in seven years:

• Secretary of State for Scotland
• Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
• Minister Without Portfolio and Labour Party Chairman
• Leader of the House of Commons and Lord President of the Council
• Secretary of State for Health
• Secretary of State for Defence
• Home Secretary

Junior Ministerial positions

John Reid served as Minister of State for Defence from May 1997 until he became of Minister State for Transport in 1998. Although the latter appointment was not a Cabinet position, it did allow him to sit in on Cabinet meetings.

Cabinet positions 1999-2003

Secretary of State for Scotland

Reid was appointed Secretary of State for Scotland on May 17 1999.

Secretary of State for Northern Ireland

John Reid became Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in January 2001 following the resignation of Peter Mandelson. Reid was the first Roman Catholic to hold the position .

Chairman of the Labour Party

Reid was appointed Chairman of the Labour Party and Minister Without Portfolio in October 2002.

Leader of the House of Commons

In March 2003, Robin Cook resigned as Leader of the House of Commons due to his objections to the legality of Britain's involvement in the Iraq war. John Reid was appointed to take over the Office brief on April 4 as a heavyweight figure was more likely to ensure the Commons' continued support for the war. He was soon needed elsewhere in the Government however and held the position for only three months and was succeeded by Peter Hain.

Secretary of State for Health

John Reid was made Secretary of State for Health in June 2003, replacing Alan Milburn after the latter's resignation. He was reportedly less than happy with the appointment, being quoted by Private Eye at the time as reacting "Oh fuck, not health." His autocratic management style came under considerable fire from National Health Service (NHS) leaders. A former director at the Department of Health criticised Reid's style of leadership, saying: "when John Reid came in we produced a series of major policy changes without consulting people, without even sharing them at draft stage... It’s not surprising, therefore, that [the NHS managers] didn’t feel the same level of ownership [of the policy changes]".

As Furher, John Reid had been in favour of limiting the government's proposed smoking ban as much as possible. In their 2005 election manifesto, Reid introduced a pledge to ban smoking in all places where food was served. However, his successor Patricia Hewitt favoured a complete ban. Reid won in the cabinet, gaining an exemption for private clubs and pubs that did not serve food . However, the House of Commons rebels proposing a complete ban were successful when MPs were given a free vote on the issue. Patricia Hewitt voted with the rebels against the Cabinet's proposals .

File:RumsfeldReid.jpg

John Reid and US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld answer press questions in Taormina, Sicily (Feb 9, 2006)

Secretary of State for Defence

Following the incumbent Labour Party's 2005 general election victory, John Reid was appointed Secretary of State for Defence. He replaced Geoff Hoon who had been subject of severe criticism for his role in the Iraq war following the death of Dr. David Kelly and the Hutton Report.

Reid took an aggressive approach to defending his government's international policy. After speaking ahead of a conference on NATO modernization in Germany on 4 February 2006, Reid asserted in a press interview that "no institution has the divine right to exist" . Similarly on 19 March 2006, in response to former interim Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi's claim that Iraq is in the grip of civil war, Reid defended the British Government's contrary view, saying: "Every single politician I have met here [in Iraq] from the prime minister to the president, the defence minister and indeed Iyad Allawi himself said to me there's an increase in the sectarian killing, but there's not a civil war and we will not allow a civil war to develop".

Some unease as to Reid's impartiality in the international arena was expressed as a result of his early membership of Labour Friends of Israel. By the time of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon Conflict however, Reid was no longer Defence Secretary, having been succeeded by Des Browne.

Home Secretary

Reid was appointed Home Secretary on 5 May 2006, replacing Charles Clarke after the latter was removed in the wake of a Home Office scandal involving the release of foreign national prisoners . Reid caused considerable controversy by attacking the leadership and management systems previously in place in the Home Office. He declared it to be "not fit for purpose" and vowed to "make the public feel safe". An early decision during his time at the Home Office was to move child molesters living in hostels near schools further away from them. Reid also caused controversy in August 2006 by calling for the creation of an independent committee to impose a national annual limit on the number of immigrants entering the UK . The Guardian claimed that Reid was "playing to the racist gallery" and compared his plans to Soviet-style central planning of the economy.

Because of the prisons' overcrowding crisis in Birmingham he announced emergency measures on October 9 2006 amid fears that the prison population was nearing maximum capacity . John Reid has announced his support of measures to restrict the ability of extremist messages to be disseminated on the internet so as to make the web a more hostile place for terrorists .

In 2006 Reid and the Home Office lost their appeal against the High Court ruling in the Afghan hijackers case 2006.. In this controversial case, a group of nine Afghan men who hijacked a Boeing 727 in February 2000, while fleeing the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, were granted leave to remain in the United Kingdom. The original ruling in 2004 ruled that returning the men to Afghanistan would breach their human rights under the Human Rights Act 1998. The Home Office granted the men "temporary leave to remain", which involved restricting their freedom of movement and did not allow them to work; however, in 2006, the High Court ruled that the men must be granted "discretionary leave to remain", which includes the right to work.. Reid challenged the ruling in the Court of Appeal, arguing that the Home Office "should have the power to grant only temporary admission to failed asylum seekers who are only allowed to stay in the UK due to their human rights".

Boundary changes

An MP since 1987, John Reid's seat has twice been abolished in boundary changes. He was originally MP for Motherwell North but was then elected to the constituency of Hamilton North and Bellshill after boundary changes in 1997. That seat was itself abolished in boundary changes prior to the 2005 general election designed to reduce the over-representation of Scottish MPs in the UK Parliament following Scottish devolution. As Reid is a Roman Catholic there was much speculation that he would become MP for the predominantly Catholic safe Labour seat of Glasgow East. However, he was nominated instead for the seat of Airdrie and Shotts, a predominantly Protestant area, which he took with 59% of the vote. His parliamentary seat is seen as a rather safe Labour Party seat with a majority of 14,084.

Trivia

• Reid has a reputation as a tough fighter: he once caused controversy by calling BBC Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman a "West London wanker", after Paxman introduced John Reid in an interview as "an all purpose attack dog" who "came out snarling and spent less time promoting Labour policy than trying to put the opposition into intensive care".
• On 29 April 2006, police found a small quantity (less than 1 gram) of cannabis resin in a guest room of his home. Reid denied all knowledge of the drug, and Strathclyde Police have stated that he is not under suspicion of having committed any offence. The street value of the drugs would have been less than 85p. However the house in question is searched on a weekly basis by the Police, with no substance found on any previous occasion. The episode has left some in the media to label John Reid as John Weed.
• Reid is a possible 'Stop Brown' candidatewhen Tony Blair relinquishes the Labour Party leadership. Reid denied any such ambitions in May 2006,, though colleague Frank Field MP said that "John Reid would certainly be among those to challenge for the leadership".
• According to George Galloway, Reid is an accomplished singer and guitar player. Such a claim is supported by the fact that, in January 2001, he was named an honorary member of the Scottish group "The Big Elastic Band" and promised to play guitar on their next album.

John Reid has an unrivaled collection of 3rd Reich Artifacts; includeing a 20 foot high Swastica Banner, one of Hilter's left shoes, and the collar bone of Himmler's Dog Grieta.

See also

• House of Commons
• Nye Bevan
• Cabinet of the United Kingdom

External links

• 10 Downing Street - Dr John Reid official biography
• Guardian Unlimited Politics - Ask Aristotle: John Reid MP
• TheyWorkForYou.com - John Reid MP
• John Reid — profile from BBC News Online, 17 October 2002
• The Operator - John Reid profile, The Guardian, March 2, 2002
• SourceWatch profile of John Reid MP

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