John Reid: Labour plotters’ secret weapon

When Lady Thatcher lunched at Chequers at the weekend, the official line was that Gordon Brown planned to discuss the global downturn with the woman who saw (and arguably caused) a few downturns of her own.

But it's possible that he might have looked to her for some tips on how to avoid being turfed unceremoniously out of office - and about the dangers of stalking horses.

Thatcher's demise is often traced back to the decision of a backbench Tory MP Sir Anthony Meyer to stand against her in 1989 as a stalking horse - a candidate who doesn't expect to win but who creates the conditions for bigger political beasts to mount a challenge. In that election, one in six Tory MPs failed to back Thatcher and, as Meyer himself said, "people started to think the unthinkable". A year later, following the more substantial challenge from Michael Heseltine, Thatcher was ousted.

Meyer had been dismissed as a mere 'stalking donkey'. Nothing so derisive could be said about the man being touted in some quarters as a potential challenger to Gordon Brown: the former Cabinet minister (Health, Defence, Home, Scotland... You name it, he's done it) John Reid. He would be more of a stalking stallion.

More important, he needn't 'stalk' on anyone's behalf - he could go for the leadership himself. He is a man around whom the plotters could stop merely plotting and build a real challenge.

Reid seriously considered a leadership challenge in 2006 when the Brownite hue and cry against Tony Blair was gathering force. During the Labour Party conference - as this year, held in Manchester - Reid watched avidly as a BBC Newsnight focus group led by the American pollster Frank Luntz showed that ordinary voters reacted more positively to Reid than to Brown.

Among friends and aides watching the programme with the then Home Secretary was his parliamentary private secretary Siobhain McDonagh, the MP who triggered the latest bout of speculation about a Labour leadership election by asking for nomination papers to be sent to Labour MPs.

(It's also worth noting that Joan Ryan, another MP to ask for nomination forms, was a junior minister under Reid at the Home Office, and that Waheed Alli, the Blairite peer implicated in the coup, used to be an adviser to Reid.)

Friends of Reid and McDonagh seek to hose down the idea of a move against Brown by his fellow Scot. There is no plot, they say, and the challenge to Brown must come from younger men, although one adds intriguingly: "John would make a marvellous deputy, a bit like Joe Biden".

McDonagh claims Reid was not aware of the letter she wrote, but admitted that she received a telephone call from him after the news broke on Friday night. "He was interested in how I was," she said. "He knows how this works."

The talk of a stalking horse - even a stalking stallion - underlines one of the difficulties facing Brown's opponents. Under Labour's rules 70 MPs are needed to back a candidate who is willing to stand. None of the Cabinet Ministers touted as potential leaders – David Miliband, Alan Johnson, Jack Straw – has shown any willingness to take that risk.

Reid, now chairman of Celtic FC, has said that he plans to step down as an MP at the next election. But he can easily renounce that decision - and he could afford to take the risk.

He’s not associated with the Brown regime; he’d make an able leader in the Commons for however long Labour can hang on - in fact he would give Cameron a run for his money; most important, the leadership wouldn't be 'wasted' on him if he lost the next election, as it most likely would be on a younger man if the Tories win by a landslide. Which they surely will if Brown remains leader. ·