Interesting article in Saturday’s Guardian magazine, highlighting John Reid’s tankie background.
Also contained some nuggets from or about Galloway:
The benefit of Reid's resurrection is now acknowledged by George Galloway: "John's a very good political operator - remorseless, unremitting and practical. Just like Stalin." The comparison to the Soviet dictator is intended as a compliment. "John knows how to make the leftwing case for a rightwing argument," adds Galloway. "He's not ideological. He weighs votes and decides who to eliminate. He made himself indispensable in the 1970s and it's the same now."
… Until the early 1980s, Brown and Reid were, Galloway witnessed, "thick as thieves". Then they simply stopped speaking to each other.
… Reid's conversion was noted during his first meeting in 1974 with George Galloway at the Festival of Marxism. "You're wasting your time in the sink of reformism," Reid scathingly told the Labour supporter.
… At the SLP [Scottish Labour Party], the uncultivated, chain-smoking working-class "boy" was introduced to Gordon Brown, Doug Henderson and George Galloway. Reid was "an exceptional researcher", says Galloway, who, while identifying Reid's potential to rank among the party's intellectual cabal, noted his intelligence was inferior to Brown's.
