The UCS work-in turned Reid from a prominent local trade unionist into a national figure whom everyone from television producers, to journalists, to politicians and inevitably hangers-on seemingly wanted a piece of. There was an obvious desire by a wide section of society to bask in the reflected glory of the poster boy communist. The Jimmy Reid who emerged from the work-in was not the same Jimmy Reid who preceded it – how could he be? His entry into the arena of national public affairs, his embedment in the popular consciousness, forced him to come to terms with the trappings of fame: the envy, the jealousy, the pettiness, as well as the adulation. As we have seen, he had already had some experience of envy in the Communist Party leadership's ‘One-sided slander’, emanating from the desire ‘to cut him and Airlie down to size’. But for now the sun shone brightly as the golden boy of the British left dazzled a legion of admirers.

The first indication of his growing popularity occurred in late 1971 when he was asked to stand as Rector of Glasgow University to replace his old friend, the Revd George MacLeod. The position of Rector dates from medieval times, but currently he/she represents the students on the ruling body of the university – the Court – and works closely with the Students’ Representative Council, bringing student concerns to the attention of the university's managers. In the past the Rector was generally a politician or a titled gentleman; indeed, three out of the four previous incumbents had been peers of the realm. Things were beginning to change from 1968: students had demanded a greater voice in university affairs and roughly about the same time as Reid's campaign got under way the future prime minister Gordon Brown, then a postgraduate student in Edinburgh University, was running for Rector. The student campaign for Reid was broad-based and far from confined to the university's Communist Club. Moreover, it reflected the desire for a working rather than a strictly honorary rector. A committee, which included George Brechin, Martin Caldwell and others, met with Reid in a trade union club by the hospice on the River Clyde to discuss the possibility of him standing.