At 1.30 am on Wednesday 9th April 2008 Ex Home Secretary John Reid, now a back bencher and MP for Airdrie and Shotts, phoned my mobile phone, apparently from New York. In character with his thuggish Rory Bremner persona he was making a thinly veiled threat against me and my Bilderberg website which ironically this year appears to have failed for the first time to discover the Bilderberg meeting venue.


Owls of Anguish - Simon Hoggart - The Guardian - Wednesday April 25 2007
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2007/apr/25/houseofcommons.politicalcolumnists


John Reid - disciple of Hegel's "Owl of Minerva"
 http://www.nineeleven.co.uk/board/viewtopic.php?t=8613


Here's the transcript of Reid's original interview by the Home Affairs Select Committee on 24th April 2007 referring to Hegel.
 http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmhaff/499/7042403.htm

Q23 Mr Winnick: In the struggle against potential mass murderers, the struggle for hearts and minds—let us be blunt about it: in the Muslim community because this is where the terrorist threat comes from—does it really help matters that that particular aspect of winning hearts and minds is split between the Home Office and the Department of Communities and Local Government?

John Reid: Not just there but the Foreign Office as well and elements of defence.

Q24 Mr Winnick: In the day to day scene here, on the domestic scene, it is mainly the two departments, is it not?

John Reid: There is education. This is one of the reasons why we needed a new not only strategic but latterly integrated, cross-government joint centre, precisely because this is not something where you can pull a lever. The battle for hearts and minds, the argumentation that goes on behind this, its relationship to foreign affairs, to domestic/social conditions, to theology, to politics is so extensive that it cannot be dealt with just in one area or one department. Therefore you have to have a mechanism for integrating the various departments and you have to have a recognition that, although those departments may have discrete and separate functions, they also have a common and overlapping cause. That is around this idea of the values that are enshrined in our lifestyle and our liberties in this country and which are common to all of us. They are expressed in different ways at different levels but since they are under threat and under question and since there is an argument going on all of them have to be brought together. It is not actually a weakness or a strength; it is a reality that they are so pervasive that they run across a lot of government departments and therefore they all have to be brought together in the way that I am suggesting.

Q25 Mr Winnick: At this stage would you say we are winning this battle?

John Reid: If you will permit me to use one of my favourite quotes to, in a sense, not answer your question, the owl of Minerva will spread its wings only at the coming of the dusk. We will look back at some stage with the wisdom of hindsight and the decisions we have taken over a number of areas, domestically, foreign and so on, will be illustrated to have been victories in that struggle for values or defeats in it. I forget the Chinese politician who, when asked about the effects of the French Revolution, said, "I think it is too early to say."