John Reid, Baron Reid of Cardowan

John Reid, Baron Reid of Cardowan (born 8 May 1947) is a British politician.

Reid initially decided not to go to university but instead took a series of jobs, including construction work on an oil pipeline and another in insurance; at the latter job, which Reid later claimed opened his eyes politically, he was assigned to the tenements in the East End of Glasgow after the city was hit by storms in late-1968 and saw poverty of a kind he did not know existed.

Soon after this experience, he joined the Labour Party.

Around this time Reid's passion for history was kindled when his girlfriend (and later wife), Cathie McGowan, bought him a copy of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer.

Reid was spellbound.

Following this he attended the Open University in his mid-twenties to study a Foundation Course and then later attended the University of Stirling, becoming rector of the Students' Union and gaining a BA in history and a PhD in economic history, with a thesis on the slave trade written as a critique of the Marxist model of historical change, titled Warrior Aristocrats in Crisis: the political effects of the transition from the slave trade to palm oil commerce in the nineteenth century Kingdom of Dahomey.

Reid was married to Cathie McGowan from 1969 until her sudden death from a heart attack in 1998.

They had two sons, Kevin and Mark.

Born in Bellshill to working-class, Roman Catholic parents, Reid first became involved in politics when he joined the Young Communist League in 1972.

From 1979 to 1983, Reid was a research officer for the Labour Party in Scotland, and from 1983 to 1985, was a political adviser to Labour leader Neil Kinnock.

In 1983, after the Labour Party's worst electoral defeat in 65 years, and at Kinnock's request, he put on a single sheet of paper what he thought had made Labour unelectable: "Leaderless, unpatriotic, dominated by demagogues, policies fifteen years out of date".

From 1986 to 1987, he was Scottish Organiser of Trade Unionists for Labour.

He was also a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1987 to 2010, and has been a Member of the House of Lords since 2010.

He later joined the Labour Party, working for them as a senior researcher before being elected to the House of Commons in 1987 as the MP for Motherwell North.

He entered parliament at the 1987 general election as MP for the Motherwell North constituency.

Elected to Parliament in 1987 as the Member of Parliament for Motherwell North, within two years he was appointed to the Shadow Front Bench as spokesperson for Children.

In 1990, Reid was appointed as Defence spokesperson.

When the former Yugoslavia was breaking up in the 1990s, Reid was in dialogue with the Bosnian Serbs.

During the Bosnian War, Reid struck up a friendship with Radovan Karadžić, later to be indicted as a war criminal.

According to The Guardian, in 1991, Reid arrived at the House of Commons "drunk one day and tried to force his way on to the floor to vote. When an attendant stepped forward to stop him, Reid threw a punch".

Reid admitted he spent three days at a luxury Geneva lakeside hotel as a guest of Karadžić in 1993.

Reid stopped drinking in 1994 and gave up his 60-a-day cigarette habit in 2003.

At university, Reid was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain.

With the support of Communist and Labour students, he became president of the students' union.

After leaving university, he became a professional Labour Party activist, linked politically with Neil Kinnock.

As an advisor to Neil Kinnock, Reid was one of the earliest advocates for reforms to the Labour Party.

He served as a junior minister in two departments from 1997, before he was promoted to the Cabinet in 1999; he served continuously in the Cabinet until Blair resigned in 2007.

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 with 59% of the votes cast.

After Labour came to power at the 1997 general election, Reid became Armed Forces Minister, where he played a key role in the Defence Secretary George Robertson's Strategic Defence Review.

A member of the Labour Party, he has held various Cabinet positions under Prime Minister Tony Blair from 1999 to 2007, lastly as Home Secretary from 2006 to 2007.

Reid served as Scottish Secretary from 1999 to 2001, Northern Ireland Secretary from 2001 to 2002, Chairman of the Labour Party and Minister without Portfolio from 2002 to 2003, Leader of the House of Commons and Lord President of the Council in 2003, Health Secretary from 2003 to 2005, Defence Secretary from 2005 to 2006, and Home Secretary from 2006 to 2007.

In 2002, he married film director Carine Adler.

He retired from frontline politics in 2007 following Gordon Brown's appointment as Prime Minister, taking on a role as the Chairman of Celtic Football Club.

After stepping down as an MP in 2010, he was nominated for a life peerage in the Dissolution Honours and elevated to the House of Lords.

Reid took a leading role in the campaign for a "No" vote in the 2011 AV referendum, appearing alongside Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, and also took a leading role in the campaign opposing Scottish independence.

Reid was born in Bellshill Maternity Hospital, North Lanarkshire, Scotland, to working-class Roman Catholic parents; his grandparents were of mixed denomination.

His grandfather was "a staunch Church of Scotland Presbyterian and his grandmother a poor and illiterate Irish peasant."

His mother, Mary, was a factory worker and his father, Thomas, was a postman.

Reid attended St Patrick's High School, Coatbridge.

The adolescent Reid showed an early talent for organisation and political activism by leading a student strike in protest at a school rule.