By Keith Aitken in Edinburgh | 30 October 2014
Former UK Cabinet minister Jim Murphy has thrown his hat into the ring for the Scottish Labour leadership post left vacant by last week’s sudden resignation of Johann Lamont.
He looks to be favourite for the job, against the two MSPs who have also put themselves forward, former Scottish transport minister Sarah Boyack and Holyrood health spokesman Neil Findlay.
Murphy, who was Scottish secretary under Gordon Brown, said today that he was determined to ‘end the period of self-harm that we have had in the Scottish Labour Party’ and that he wanted to channel the energy of the referendum debate into solving Scotland’s endemic problems.
He confirmed that he wanted to be First Minister of Scotland, a post open only to MSPs, but gave no details of whether he would stand again for his Westminster seat of East Renfrewshire at next year’s general election, or of the timescale or mechanism by which he would hope to gain a Holyrood seat.
‘I’m proud of the Scottish Labour Party, I’m proud of Scotland, but I’m not satisfied,’ Murphy said. ‘There is so much that has to change about the Labour Party and so much that has to change about our country.’
Murphy gained kudos for his populist ‘100 days tour’ of Scotland to promote the No case in the referendum campaign, but the fact of his being an MP rather than an MSP may count against him in the wake of Lamont’s bitter complaints at being hampered as Scottish Leader by party ‘dinosaurs’ in London. It was a claim corroborated by former first ministers Henry McLeish and Lord McConnell.
He is also widely seen as an archetypal Blairite, who supported New Labour policies, such as the Iraq invasion, which were deeply unpopular in Scotland. He also backed David Miliband’s leadership bid, a position that has not helped his career to prosper under current party leader Ed Miliband.
Boyack is a competent and respected operator who, as transport minister, introduced free bus travel for over-60s in the early years of the Scottish Parliament. She and Murphy jointly conducted a review of party structures after Labour’s 2011 Holyrood election defeat.
Findlay, a former bricklayer who was elected to the Parliament in 2011, is less well known with the public, though popular with the party’s Left wing and in the trade unions.
A third of the votes in the contest lie with unions and other affiliated bodies, a third with parliamentarians and a third with grassroots members.
