JIM Murphy is nothing if not energetic.
He plays football, he runs marathons, and even amid the helter skelter of an election campaign he tries to go jogging six nights a week.
So he really ought to know how to tie his laces.
Yet last week he was tripping himself up almost daily, stumbling from gaffe to gaffe.
On Monday he visited a Glasgow hospital to claim the cancellation rate for operations was four times that in England - it simply wasn't true.
Labour, as he was forced to admit after deleting a related YouTube video, misread the data.
It took the shine off a genuine political win for his party - pushing the SNP Government to publish A&E waiting times weekly not monthly.
Then Murphy was caught deleting sections of his personal website which had become embarrassing, notably a 2012 article in which he said Labour needed to accept the Coalition's spending cuts and reject "shallow and temporary" populism.
Finally, the cherry on the cake, Yes for Labour, the ham-fisted campaign to win back Labour voters sickened during the referendum.
When the Sunday Herald revealed the plan two weeks ago, the party downplayed it after it was mocked for being both shameless and inept.
Then an advert for a Yes for Labour event appeared on Scottish Labour's website, only to be withdrawn after the news hit social media.
The event was held yesterday under a new label after Murphy dumped the Yes for Labour one.
Such self-inflicted injuries flow from Murphy's own frantic, gadfly style of leadership.
When activity trumps strategy, mistakes follow.
Meanwhile the SNP and Tories are this weekend methodically targeting the 300,000 disaffected LibDem voters up for grabs in May.
That's how winning parties fight elections: with a fine-tooth comb not an airbrush.
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