The latest buzz on Reid’s resignation

The latest Westminster gossip: he was told by Gordon Brown he wouldn’t be Home Secretary or Foreign Secretary—the only acceptable alternative for him. Perhaps Brown thought his cabinet would be too Scottish, perhaps he wanted to make way for these new young faces and have ”maximum flexibility” (Reid’s words not Brown’s) for his reshuffle. Or perhaps, Brown didn’t want to govern with a rival power base in the cabinet, which the indomitable Reid would certainly have become. So Reid chose the back benches over demotion, just as Charles Clarke did.

I gather Reid won’t be giving interviews in the next couple of days, so we’ll have to wait for the definitive version of events. But the above is the talk of the steamie, as they say in Airdrie and Shotts.