Marathon man Murphy races for his political survival

Jim Murphy likes to run marathons: now the Scottish Labour leader is locked in a political race that could cost him his seat and his party the general election.

Mr Murphy took control of Scottish Labour after September's independence referendum but has struggled to energise the party's campaign and stop voters flocking to the Scottish National party.

The stakes are high for Labour and the 47-year-old former cabinet minister. The loss of 30 seats to the SNP could be the difference between success and victory on the national battlefield.

Until last week it seemed that Mr Murphy's East Renfrewshire seat on the southern edge of Glasgow could withstand the SNP surge. Then on Friday, a poll by Lord Ashcroft, the Conservative psephologist, suggested the nationalists were eight points ahead, up from one point in February.

Losing the seat would be humiliating for Mr Murphy. In 2010 the SNP picked up just 9 per cent of the local vote against his 51 per cent. In September the area rejected independence by a margin of 17,000 votes.

On the campaign trail in Glasgow on Tuesday, Mr Murphy struck an upbeat note. "It's fine, it's absolutely fine," he said. "We've still got two weeks and two days to go. There is all to play for."

What makes matters particularly painful is that for half a century, Labour has been able to depend on Scotland, and the Glasgow area in particular.

Sir Malcolm Rifkind, Tory former Scotland secretary, said: "It is like my party losing the Home Counties" - the Conservative heartlands in southeast England.

Labour could even lose Kirkcaldy & Cowdenbeath, previously held by Gordon Brown, the former prime minister, with a 23,009 majority.

A first-time visitor to the constituency might wonder why it was a Labour seat.

Verdant streets lined with large suburban homes and rolling golf courses nearby suggest widespread affluence. Until 1997 the seat, which also includes one of Scotland's poorest wards, was solidly Tory.

Mr Murphy seized it in 1997, taking advantage of the Conservatives' toxic reputation in Scotland: a legacy of the Margaret Thatcher years.

Now he is about to experience a political landslide from the opposite perspective. Kirsten Oswald, his SNP opponent, was selected only in January. At the SNP's local office, a former butcher's on a roundabout in Clarkston, the human resources manager says 19 new members recently signed up in just one day.

Asked about parallels with Labour's 1997 landslide, the former community councillor replies carefully: "We are just going to keep at this for two weeks and do our best."

But the Ashcroft poll has been "incredibly galvanising" for activists, says Vincent Waters, her campaign manager. Local membership has grown to 1,100 from 200 in the past year, he adds.

The new support is coming almost exclusively from Labour and not the Conservatives, who have held on to about 30 per cent of the vote, according to the Ashcroft poll.

At a bus stop, Frank Curke, a former docker who took part in the "Red Clyde" strikes of the 1970s, says he will vote Labour until his dying day.

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Dave McKay, an estate agent, says it was not a matter of left or right.

"I didn't vote for independence but I do want MPs who fight for Scotland in Westminster. That's not something that really happened with the Tories or Labour. And I've been impressed by Nicola Sturgeon and how she has run things."

Samantha Morton, a mother who works for a housing association, says she will vote SNP as a protest vote against austerity and the Trident nuclear deterrent.

"We now have tenants who are relying on food banks - that is wrong in this day and age," she says. "For the first time ever I think my vote might actually count for something . . . I feel completely empowered."

A few miles up the road in the village of Eaglesham, Robert Nicol, a former CCTV manager who uses a mobility scooter, says the area has tried the Conservatives and Labour.

"They have both failed," he complains. "It's time for Nicola Sturgeon to have a go. I'm not saying she's right all the time but she's a breath of fresh air."

Arthur McPhillimy, a one-time Labour supporter, probably won't vote. "Ed Miliband doesn't impress me too much, I don't rate the bloke," he muses. "As for Jim Murphy . . . he is wishy-washy."

If Mr Murphy loses his seat it is not clear whether he will lose the Scottish leadership automatically: he intends to stand for the Scottish parliament in the 2016 elections either way.

Even Mr Murphy's most ardent backers are worried.

"It a difficult job he's trying to do, running the national campaign while defending his own seat," says John Wall, a former union official outside a garden centre. "It's hard to ride two horses with one arse."

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