Reid was born in Bellshill Maternity Hospital,[2] North Lanarkshire, Scotland, to working-class Roman Catholic parents; his grandparents were of mixed denomination.

[3] 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.

[3] 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[3][5] 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.

[3] Reid gained considerable praise for the review; with some commentators going so far as to describe his success in cutting military expenditure at the same time as winning over the defence chiefs as "brilliant".

[19] Prime Minister Tony Blair then sent Reid to the Department of Transport to ensure the late-running and over-budget London Underground Jubilee Line Extension was completed by the end of 2000.

[20] Reid demonstrated several aspects: he negotiated strongly; he was a political fighter; he had a "capacity for non-dogmatic adaptability and reliability";[21] and was described as "a safe pair of hands".

[23] The reconstituted Scotland Office had been much reduced in importance with devolution but Reid used the position to build his profile, prepared to put the government's case on any issue against TV interviewers.

[28] Reid ruled that ceasefires proclaimed by the Ulster Defence Association and the Loyalist Volunteer Force could no longer be recognised by the government because of their involvement in sectarian attacks and murders.

[30] It was in this context that, in October 2001 he welcomed a Gerry Adams speech as a "highly significant" step which he hoped would pave the way for a "groundbreaking" move by the IRA to disarm which would transform the political situation.

[36] In the interim, Reid also had to deal with continuing domestic problems; including those with loyalist ceasefires, sectarian murders and the tinderbox of Holy Cross primary school in north Belfast (that ignited the worst rioting in the city in years).

[37] In this purely political post, his trouble-shooting skills were employed as the Labour Government's chief spokesperson; this earned him the nickname "Minister for the Today Programme".

[21] At Health, Reid saw himself as a reformer, controversially increasing capacity by introducing private companies to run treatment centres for knee, hip and eye operations.

[44] Many of his changes caused criticism and controversy, which Reid was not afraid to take head on, delivering a staunch defence of Labour's reform programme to the party's annual conference.

Speaking ahead of a conference on NATO modernisation in Germany on 4 February 2006, Reid asserted in a press interview that "no institution has the divine right to exist".

[55] Similarly on 19 March 2006, in response to former interim Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi's claim that Iraq is in the grip of civil war, Reid defended the British Government's contrary view.

He said that America's experience of the Vietnam War had impacted negatively on US post-invasion planning in Iraq because US military chiefs "weren't thinking of detailed nation-building".

[58] By the time he arrived at the Home Office, Reid was seen as one of the government's most effective performers over the previous decade, being described by many commentators as a bruiser, but with a strong academic leaning.

[6] He contended that rapid global change and the associated challenges of mass migration, terrorism and organised crime had overwhelmed the outdated Home Office approach.

[65] Reid also caused controversy in August 2006 by calling for the creation of an independent committee to impose a national annual limit on the number of immigrants entering the UK.

[68] Reid has announced his support of measures to restrict the ability of extremist messages to be disseminated on the Internet so as to make the web a more hostile place for terrorists.

[70] In this controversial case, a group of nine Afghan men who hijacked a Boeing 727 in February 2000, while fleeing the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, were granted leave to remain in the United Kingdom.

[16] Reid challenged the ruling in the Court of Appeal, arguing that the Home Office "should have the power to grant only temporary admission to failed asylum seekers who are only allowed to stay in the UK due to their human rights".

[72] Reid accused government's critics of putting national security at risk by their failure to recognise the serious nature of the threat facing Britain.

Announcing the plans, Reid told MPs that the terrorist threat would only be overcome by "united action by all of us" and urged the public to remain vigilant at all times.

[78][79] Reid revealed that the alleged terror plot could have caused civilian casualties on an "unprecedented scale" and security sources said an attack was believed to have been imminent.

[83] Reid then led European Ministers in efforts to make the Internet a "more hostile" place for terrorists and crack down on people using the web to share information on explosives or spread propaganda.

[84] In September 2006, Reid addressed Muslims in a run-down part of east London, warning them that fanatics were looking to groom and brainwash children for suicide bombings.

Mr Brooks is a leader of the UK-banned Al Ghurabaa, an offshoot of the terrorist-supporting Al-Muhajiroun – a man who many accuse of glorifying terrorism and inciting racial hatred during nightly conversations (often using the nom de plume Abu Baraa) on a New York-based chatroom service.

It was speculated that, as a true Blairite believer, he either wanted to carry the torch of reform himself as Labour leader or else quit the scene altogether to make way for new blood.

[119] In late 2008 it was announced that Reid would be taking up the post of honorary Professor at the University College London and become the chairman of the newly created Institute of Security and Resilience Studies (ISRS) at UCL.