Jimmy Reid Quotes

Jimmy Reid — Scottish Activist born on September 07, 1932, died on August 10, 2010

James "Jimmy" Reid was a Scottish trade union activist, orator, politician, and journalist born in Govan, Glasgow. His role as spokesman and one of the leaders in the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders work-in between June 1971 and October 1972 attracted international recognition. He later served as Rector of the University of Glasgow and subsequently became a journalist and broadcaster. Formerly a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, Reid was later a Labour Party member. He joined the Scottish National Party in 2005 and fully supported Scottish independence. He died in 2010 after a long illness... (wikipedia)

The task of the media in a democracy is not to ease the path of those who govern, but to make life difficult for them by constant vigilance as to how they exercise the power they only hold in trust from the people.

A rat race is for rats. We're not rats. We're human beings. Reject the insidious pressures in society that would blunt your critical faculties to all that is happening around you, that would caution silence in the face of injustice lest you jeopardise your chances of promotion and self-advancement.

Profit is the sole criterion used by the establishment to evaluate economic activity. From the rat race to lame ducks. The vocabulary in vogue is a give-away. It's more reminiscent of a human menagerie than human society.

From the very depth of my being, I challenge the right of any man or any group of men, in business or in government, to tell a fellow human being that he or she is expendable.

When New Labour came to power, we got a Right-wing Conservative government. I came to realise that voting Labour wasn't in Scotland's interests any more. Any doubt I had about that was cast aside for ever when I saw Gordon Brown cosying up to Margaret Thatcher in Downing Street.

Jimmy Reid Quotes

Login with