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Daily Record
Daily Record
Politics
Chris McCall

Jim Murphy removes Scottish Labour credentials from his website

Former Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy has removed all mention of his time in charge of the party from a list of his professional achievements.

The ex-MP for East Renfrewshire details a lengthy roll of personal accomplishments on a website for his consultancy firm, Arden Strategies.

Murphy explains he served as a minister in the governments of both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown as well as being a member of the Queen's Privy Council.

But there's no room for his eventful spell as leader of Scottish Labour, which lasted for less than a year.

Murphy  won a leadership contest in 2014 after Johann Lamont quit the top job in the aftermath of that year's independence referendum.

He pledged to unite the party north of the Border and encourage a more Scottish dimension to its policy making to counter persistent claims from the SNP that it did whatever the London HQ wanted.

But the 2015 general election saw the Nationalists famously win 56 out of a possible 59 constituencies in Scotland, with Labour losing 40 of the 41 seats it was defending - including Murphy's in East Renfrewshire.

Murphy survived a vote of no confidence at a party meeting in the same month but announced his intention to stand down shortly after, adding he would no longer seek a seat in Holyrood.

He was – until Jackson Carlaw’s resignation last week – the shortest serving leader of a Scottish political party.

Murphy, 47, was first elected to Westminster in 1997, the year Tony Blair and New Labour swept into Downing Street.

A relative unknown at the time, he had been selected as the candidate for the Eastwood constituency on the outskirts of Glasgow - which at the time had the largest Tory majority in all ofScotland.

But the 1997 election saw the Tories routed north of the border, losing all of their Scottish seats, and Murphy was voted in to the House of Commons.

He held a number of ministerial roles under Mr Blair, including both minister for employment and welfare reform and Europe minister.

The Record has asked Murphy for comment.

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