I interview Jim Murphy in tomorrow’s Spectator, in which he gives his endorsement to Tony Blair as EU president. For the first time, we’re running a longer version of the piece online (click here). I’ve always rated Murphy, ever since I saw him shout down Trots in my student days at Glasgow. Coffee Housers are normally suspicious when we praise Brown’s younger ministers – what, it is asked, have they ever done? This isn’t a Cabinet, it’s a creche. Now, many of these criticisms are valid. But I consider Murphy a cut above for the following reasons:
1. He turned the safest Tory seat in Scotland into one of Labour’s safest seats in Scotland, using exhausting and innovative campaign methods which transcended party loyalties. He calls it “retail politics” – surgeries on train platforms, supermarkets etc. He didn’t inherit a safe seat: he made one.
2.
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