Conversations with John Reid can lead to a surprising number of topics: the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, Barack Obama in America, a lasting peace in Northern Ireland. Perhaps this is not surprising, given that the Celtic chairman has held three of the great or ominous offices of state in Britain: those of Home Secretary, Defence Secretary and Northern Ireland Secretary.
Yesterday, however, Reid chose to wax lyrical on a subject much closer to his heart. He had just pored over Celtic's latest half-year accounts, which showed a pre-tax profit of £8.36million on an increased turnover of £46.78million. In Celtic's on-going quest to become a debt-free club, their net borrowings have also been slashed to just £970,000. The figures were largely enhanced by Celtic once