WHAT may well be a unique tribute has been paid to one of the greatest politicians of 20th-century Scotland, the legendary Tom Johnston.

A new book by the veteran journalist and broadcaster Russell Galbraith has not one but two forewords, contributed by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and former prime minister Gordon Brown.

A new edition of Without Quarter is an updated and hugely expanded version of Galbraith’s original 1995 work. It is published by Edinburgh firm Birlinn, priced at £12.99.

It is clear that Johnston, who was secretary of state for Scotland and a leading member of Winston Churchill’s wartime cabinet, is massively admired by both the SNP leader and the former leader of the Labour Party.

It was Churchill who coined Johnston’s nickname of the “Uncrowned King of Scotland”. So impressed was he by Johnston that Churchill, who offered him a knighthood and a peerage, and pressed him to become a Companion of Honour, the only title the modest Scot would take.

A Red Clydesider who started in politics as a journalist and theoret ician for the early Labour movement, Johnston laid the foundations for the NHS in Scotland as well as the Hydro Board, the Forestry Commission and Scottish Tourist Board.

He saw to the rebuilding of war-affected areas and slum clearances, and brought in a town and country planning system that would encourage new towns, among other improvements.

Johnston was also committed to the cause of home rule all his life, even when that policy was unpopular within his own Labour Party. Indeed, in his foreword Gordon Brown alludes to that fact and to the truth that Johnston provided much of the brainwork for the establishment of the NHS.

He writes: “While Tom Johnston left a major legacy of achievements, particularly as a wartime secretary of state for Scotland, it could be argued that he left office [in 1945] just at the time he could have had most impact.

“Had he stayed on, he would have been the major figure dominating the reconstruction of postwar Scotland.

“Moreover if it is unlikely that if he had stayed in office the issue of Scottish devolution would have been so neglected by the Labour government of 1945.

“And if he had stayed on after his great achievement of the first part of the 1940s – to lay the foundations for a National Health Service in Scotland in advance of the UK – he would have been far better recognised by histor-ians, but also by his contemporaries and indeed by the Scottish people, as the architect of the NHS alongside Aneurin Bevan.”

Brown concludes by writing that Johnston should be remembered “as one of the great leaders of modern Scotland”.

In her foreword, Nicola Sturgeon writes of Johnston’s “pivotal place in the life of Scotland”. She writes: “Tom Johnston’s contribution to Scottish public life can be measured in the positive effect it had on so many ordinary lives ...

“He would have been very pleased to see a Scottish Parliament in place in Edinburgh, firmly entrenched and established in our national life and delivering for citizens in every part of our country.”

Author Galbraith is delighted at the honour paid to the subject of his book by two of the most important politicians of contemporary Scotland.

He told The National: “It really is a remarkable tribute to have these two leading figures write in such glowing terms about Tom Johnston. It shows just how much he is respected for his achievements all these years later.”