Into the Light Celtic After an Ugly Reaction to His Appointment, It Is Little Wonder John Reid Is Happy to Play It Low Key, Finds Michael Grant

Summary

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JOHN Reid sat with us as a 60-year-old feeling under the weather and struggling to hear out of one ear because of the flu, yet he still had the strength to haul up a drawbridge. The hardened political bruiser once branded "an all-purpose attack dog" by Jeremy Paxman . . . Reid returned fire by replying that the presenter was a "West London wanker" . . . wasn't doing much in the way of attacking the other day as he held his first proper briefing to journalists since becoming the chairman of Celtic. Nor was he even aggressively defensive; it was just that he made it plain certain subjects weren't up for discussion.

In almost 40 minutes with him no-one got as far as uttering the four letter word, but it hung over everything. He seemed to sniff a reference to Iraq when he was asked whether his confrontational ministerial style would have to be softened to negotiate the corridors of football politics, and reacted by claiming he had said all there was to say about his New Labour background at Celtic's annual general meeting last month.

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Into the Light Celtic After an Ugly Reaction to His Appointment, It Is Little Wonder John Reid Is Happy to Play It Low Key, Finds Michael Grant

His sensitivity was easy to understand. That annual meeting generated the sort of headlines that would have a Millbank spin doctor waking up in a cold sweat. On the day he was presented as Celtic's chairman the former Home Secretary was branded a war criminal by one supporter on the basis that he was a member of the government which supported the invasion o...

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