The famous Scots rebel who is inspiring his grand daughter

On the pub’s television, Albania have just scored against Serbia in the Euros and I’m silently raising a glass to Enver Hoxha, enigmatic leader of the former Communist state. When I point out Albania’s improbable one-goal lead there’s a mild cheer laced with irony. Of all the leaders in post-war Eastern Europe, Mr Hoxha was not perhaps Communism’s most charismatic poster-boy. And nor was Albania.

“I believe you know this woman,” I say and introduce him to Joani Reid, Labour candidate for East Kilbride & Strathaven. This is a happy coincidence. Ms Reid’s family and Mr McLean’s have known each other for generations.

The prospect of sitting down with a group of hard-boiled, West of Scotland CP stalwarts is one that would induce apoplexy in most other candidates for Keir Starmer’s Labour Party. The advisor who’d been responsible for overlooking the presence of Tankies on the stump would have been sacked on the spot and a social media clean-up team would be dispatched to locate and destroy any stray selfies.

Jimmy Reid was a huge figure in Scottish politics - and went on to join the Scottish National Party in 2005 (Image: free)

Joani Reid though, is her own woman. This has already been evident in our peregrinations round these streets. And besides, her grandfather, the late, great Jimmy Reid – himself a former traveller of the Red Road – would have encouraged her to tarry with these men awhile.

She’s delighted to hear their recollections of the East Kilbride Nae Pasaran triumph. This was when a group of workers at the town’s renowned Rolls Royce factory refused to work on Chilean Air Force parts between 1974 and 1978 as a protest against the atrocities of the Pinochet regime.

She’s accompanied on this tour by Joe Fagan, Labour leader of South Lanarkshire Council who is helping Ms Reid in her campaign. Mr Fagan had been prominent in helping Felipe Bustos Sierra make his remarkable 2018 film about the protest by the Rolls Royce workers.

His presence is important. He’s East Kilbride born and bred and he’s been a councillor here for 17 years. It’s also testament to how highly regarded Ms Reid is viewed in her party that Mr Fagan, a respected politician in his own right, is walking these streets with her.

The candidate herself though, is making no big claims. She knows she faces an uphill battle in seeking to overturn Lisa Cameron’s handsome SNP majority of 13,322 from 2019. Since then though, Ms Cameron has defected to the Tories and there’s a feeling that simmering local resentment at such a betrayal could work in Joani Reid’s favour.

“I’m not really counting on that,” she says. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s history and I detect that the voters in East Kilbride have had enough of gesture politics and raking up old grievances. They are intelligent and know their own minds. I don’t think it’s necessary to try to exploit the Lisa Cameron situation.”

This is probably wise. At last year’s Rutherglen West and Hamilton by-election I was told by some former SNP activists that there was significant sympathy for Ms Cameron locally owing to claims of bullying and intimidation from within the party over her Christian faith. They might have been disappointed in her decision to join the Tories, but any attempts to cash in on this episode would not be appreciated.

Ms Reid’s desire to make this campaign clean and honest contrasts with some opposing activists. She’s lived for several years in the south-east London borough of Lewisham which she represented at council level and this has become a minor obsession with some in the SNP. “I thought local politics in London was tough,” she says, “but it’s nothing compared to up here.”

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Long before being asked to stand in East Kilbride & Strathaven, she’d decided to move back to Glasgow with her young family, mainly to be nearer her parents. She was born and raised eight miles away in Glasgow’s south side and attended university in the city.

UK Labour’s one-word clarion call in this election is Change. It’s uttered at every turn by Sir Keir Starmer and the Scottish leader, Anas Sarwar. It’s a facile and empty slogan, though. Every election is about change and Sir Keir in particular seems rather less keen to provide much detail or any specific time-frame of when all the big changes will occur.

I’m pleased that nowhere in her engagements with local traders in East Kilbride village does she mouth this meaningless catchword. “My personal values and my political ones are not driven by anything complicated,” she says. “It’s about trying to improve the lives of those most in need and using the resources and abilities we possess to do that.

“Like Anas Sarwar, I can understand why some people might have been drawn to the SNP in the past, but you can’t honestly say that they’ve made anything like the best of what was at their disposal in the 17 years they’ve been in power.”

Nor does she retreat from discussing those ‘cultural’ issues which induce the collywobbles in Sir Keir and Mr Sarwar. “Look,” she says, “it would be dishonest of me to deny that the gender debate comes up often on the doorsteps around here. This issue has cut through to the general public and the findings of the Cass Review have been a watershed moment in our recent history. People in East Kilbride have a no-nonsense approach to their politics. They refuse to be patronised and like to keep it real.”

When you meet a native of East Kilbride you must take great care not to describe their home as a Glasgow settlement. A modern urban legend about the town is that many of its residents never feel the need to make the short trip to Glasgow. All their retail and cultural needs were once met by the gargantuan and sprawling East Kilbride shopping centre, several decent hotels; Calderglen Country Park and its old conservation village. Among Scotland’s post-war new towns, East Kilbride was the Shangri-la, the ultimate Scottish model of working-class aspiration. It could make its own case for being a small, independent republic.

As these places go, the shopping centre is still handsome and a triumph of urban planning. But then you notice that long stretches of it have effectively been mothballed as retailers in the post-Covid era have begun to withdraw. This dominates engagements with local shop-owners and restaurateurs. “How has it been since Covid,” Ms Reid asks of a local butcher. She asks the same question of the manager at Bond, the smart restaurant and cocktail bar in the village.

They’re both cautiously optimistic that daylight can once more be glimpsed. Joe Fagan channels his fierce East Kilbride nationhood. “You’ll get a better steak here than anywhere in Glasgow,” he says.

Joani Reid is a former London councillor (Image: free)

Ms Reid is careful not to pitch the hard sell. Instead, she confines herself to promoting Labour’s new deal for working people. “No fire and re-hire; the real Living Wage, making work family-friendly; no zero-hours contracts; strengthen trade union rights and improve pay and conditions.”

It all sounds like good old fashioned, no-nonsense Socialism of the type that her grandfather once championed. It might even catch on at Westminster. Is the Jimmy Reid connection a help or a hindrance? “It’ll never be a hindrance,” she replies. “To me, he was always just my much-loved, cuddly granddad who was bursting with pride when I spoke in my first ever university debate. I’m proud when people tell me they knew him or admired him.”

Outside the butcher’s shop she encounters Collette Stevenson, the SNP MSP for the area. They recognise each other instantly and there’s affection and a degree of mutual respect between them. They wish each other good luck with none of the blokey chest-beating and wise-cracking you get when males meet in similar situations.

We also meet Greta McGuinness, a kenspeckle face here whose late husband Tony, was the driving force behind the Kilbryde Hospice. She beckons me aside. “Jimmy Reid would be very proud of Joani,” she says. “She’s got my vote.”