George Reid obituary: A lad o' pairts who revelled in being ‘of use'

The National

13 hours ago

As the party's Chief Executive I was taking him round the tea room after he had delivered the annual keynote Donaldson Lecture. It was a magisterial tour de force which reminded a party audience of the prodigious talents that had made him an important member of the SNP group at Westminster between 1974 and 1979.
It also confirmed that he was back from his spell as Director of Public Affairs for the International Red Cross in Geneva, and keen to be involved again.
Suddenly our tea room progress was blocked by a very angry looking Dr Robert MacIntyre, the SNP's first MP who won a wartime by-election in Motherwell.
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Doc Mac, as he was known, was probably the most distinguished elder statemesmen of the SNP at that time, but he refused to shake George's hand and instead started to fulminate against the man who in the February 1974 General Election had unexpectedly won the Ochil seat.
And that was the problem because Doc Mac, 21 years on, still blamed his own unexpected defeat in the neighbouring seat of Stirling on this young charismatic TV journalist who, although a late entry into the contest, had quickly drawn into his campaign most of the young, keen SNP election workers in Central Scotland – including those that Doc Mac needed to win Stirling.
Soon the altercation began attracting attention but George quickly proved his mastery of such things. 'Good to see you Robert,' he said suavely. 'Michael, I am sure willl pass on to me any views you have' and moving on, he glad handed the next table whilst Doc Mac re-directed his glare to me.
George was an expert in large and small scale conflict resolution and that requires not just empathy and quick thinking but also the ability to square circles. He had that in spades, being a convinced nationalist who never wavered in his support for independence but also, for example, being entirely comfortable as the representative of the monarch as Lord Lieutenant of Clackmannan between 2011 and 2014 as well as acting – with aplomb – in her stead as Lord High Commissioner of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 2008 and 2009.
Those skills, coupled with the witty but equally charming approach of his wife Dee, allowed him to undertake a huge range of other high profile tasks from cutting edge broadcasting to chairing the Scottish Parliament, sorting out the massive burach which was the Holyrood building project (and by so doing restoring at least in part the reputation of the nascent institution), solving a crisis in governance in the very patrician National Trust for Scotland, and – in his supposed retirement – regularly being sought out to give wise advice to Parliaments and civic organisations across Europe.
Of course this ability to talk with, work with and make common cause with people who were most probably irredeemably and institutionally hostile to independence made enemies as well as friends.
None the less he had a strong following wihthin and outwith the party, from those who recognised his considerable intellectual abilities, his affable though reserved charm and his natural courage which had been well proved by a stint between Westminster and Holyrood working in international disaster zones including in the Armenian earthquake of 1988 for which he received the Gold Medal of the Armenian Supreme Soviet.
George once told me that shortly after his narrow defeat in the Westminster election of 1979 he realised that it would be a decade or more before the SNP recovered – electorally and organisationally - from the war of attrition that had been waged against it during the first devolution era. He, and his family, suffered severely as a result of that unremitting pressure but recover he did.
So having returned home from Geneva in time to stand in the 1997 General Election for the Ochil seat, Clackmannan being where he had been born and bred, he was well placed to contest it in the first elections to the Scottish Parliament.
He came second but was elected to the new chamber on the Mid Scotland and Fife list. He was the SNP's obvious choice for Presiding Officer but his good friend David Steel commanded majority support. George had to settle for being one of his deputies.
That was a disappointment to him, but the difficulties that the SNP had in the 2003 election worked to his subsequent advantage.
Two nights before polling day George and I had a long telephone conversation in which he expressed his own fears of losing again. We agreed that if we both lost we would go off and do some consultancy or writing work together, but in the end he won the Ochil seat by 296 votes, beating the incumbent Dr Richard Simpson.
His re-election in a reduced SNP group put him pole position to become Presiding Officer, particularly as all the parties now realised they needed someone extraordinary to resolve the crisis of ever escalating costs and ever lengthening delivery dates which were bedevilling construction at Holyrood.
George rose to the occasion and presided over the opening of the building by the Queen in October 2004.
His crucial role in making that happen was widely acknowledged but although he would have liked to have served a second term as Presiding Officer, the difficulties presented by the Holyrood electoral system meant that in the end he recognised that retirement was his best choice.
Of course, George was never going to be sidelined for long. He spent the years from 2007 until his diagnosis with bladder cancer in 2013 advising and guiding those involved in causes as varied as administering the Northern Ireland Assembly and taking forward diplomatic dialogue in the EU Caucasus/Caspian Commission. He was also an Electoral Commissioner and an adviser on the Scottish Ministerial code.
In addition his contribution was recognised by being chosen as the Herald's Scottish Politician of the Year twice as well as receiving a special life time achievement award in 2013. Knighted in 2012 he also became a Knight of the Thistle in 2022.
His surgery in 2013 was a complete success but he did reduce commitments thereafter though he always enjoyed seeing how projects he had instigated or assisted on were proceeding.
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For a while I chaired the Parliament's Scottish Future's Forum which he founded and which encourages strategic thinking outwith the usual party political boundaries. We also met regularly in his role as a member of the First Minister 's Council on Europe and Brexit between 2016 and 2020.
Of course he maintained a keen interest in what was happening in the SNP and sometimes worried that it had forgotten lessons from its past. He deplored the tendency in politics to see everything as a black and white battle of heroes and villains, something that damages not just Scotland nor only the UK. Moderation and compromise were in his DNA.
Lord MacKay of Clashfern – another politician with a huge hinterland and a remarkable record in public service – once observed that that the role of people like him was to be 'of use'.
Sir George Newlands Reid was a shining example of a politician who was supremely useful to his country and indeed further afield. His successful ability to work across political boundaries while maintaining his integrity and beliefs achieved much and attracted many plaudits.
That remains a lesson worth learning.
Michael Russell is a former President of the SNP