Why John Reid is stepping down

Earlier today, like many people around Westminster, I received a text message from John Reid letting me know that he will be standing down as an MP at the next election. As sorry as I am – John was an invigorating presence on the parliamentary and Whitehall scene, and one of the few ministers who fully grasped how the world changed on 9/11 – the news does not come as an enormous surprise. For a start, he is blissfully happy in his marriage and had always talked wistfully of a time when he would be able to devote himself fully to his wife (‘I’m a happy bastard, me’). But he is also a politician with a pitiless capacity to judge when the game is up. A year ago he was seriously weighing up his leadership chances, and conspicuously declined to rule out a run at the top job in a pre-conference interview with me.