When Jimmy Reid died on 11 August the outpouring of sycophantic praise for this rank class traitor was positively nauseating. He is the type of working-class leader we needed today we are told by Gregor Gall, professor of industrial relations at the University of Hertfordshire and frequent speaker on the left circuit in The Guardian and Martin Kettle also in The Guardian, by The Telegraph, The Mail, etc. From the liberal reactionary press to the outright Tory all have recommended him to us. Back in 1972, The New York Times printed in full his speech accepting the Rectorship of Glasgow University and The Independent here did the same two days after he died.

On the ‘far left’ things were no better. They all either ignored or positively welcomed this ‘advice’ to us from our direct class enemies. Their class consciousness is indeed at an historically low ebb if they cannot even speculate as to why these would recommend this man and his methods to us as our ideal type of workers’ leader. Is it not surely the case that they know capitalism is safe in the hands of such people with a talent for hiding their treachery behind left-sounding demagogy?

The modern equivalent, one reviewer told us, is Tommy Sheridan and we identified him as a political fraud many years ago at an anti-poll tax rally. Although in fairness Tommy has campaigned tirelessly for his beliefs and has gone to jail for them. His miseducation is entirely down to the Ted Grant leadership of Militant who deliberately cultivated such an approach in him, in Derek Hatton and others with a talent for motivating the masses, just as Reid was groomed by the CPGB. And he really does not deserve to be imprisoned by the evidence of the Bertie Smalls amongst his former comrades in the SSP; where is the class consciousness of these people from the city of the Red Clydesiders who turn state evidence on behalf of the News of the World?