JIM Murphy has ordered his party to campaign at full throttle for the next three months, amid dire opinion polls pointing to a Labour collapse in Scotland costing it the UK general election.

 

The Scottish Labour leader said he had brought forward campaign plans from late April and May, and told his shadow cabinet that next week's Holyrood recess was "cancelled" for them, and they must campaign round the country instead.

Claiming his party would fight all the way to May 7 as if it were the frenetic last week of the election, the East Renfrewshire MP said Labour would start by knocking 50,000 doors this weekend, and then reach out to 500,000 target voters with its largest ever social media drive.

The central messages will Labour's plan for 1000 more nurses and a warning that voting SNP helps the Conservatives stay in office.

Murphy said he was "making higher demands of our local parties, higher demands of our candidates" in terms of work hours and contact with voters.

"We're taking it to a new level," he said at a weekend briefing for journalists.

"We're looking to do May levels of campaigning in February, bringing forward the intensity of campaigning we had planned for late April and early May into February and from here on in."

The shake-up follows last week's publication of devastating polls for Scottish Labour, which predicted the party could lose all but six of its 41 seats to the SNP, a result that could stop Ed Miliband winning the general election.

The look at 16 Scottish seats by Tory peer Lord Ashcroft also found more people preferred David Cameron as Prime Minister than Miliband.

Murphy said: "The poll this week from Ashcroft was really very bad for the Scottish Labour Party, there's no getting away from that.

"If the poll is repeated on election day, it looks like Scotland will, by accident, deliver another five years of Tory government.

"Party members know that the Scottish Labour Party is in the fight of its life."

Despite sounding crushed by the burden of UK Labour relying on him to deliver Scotland to win the election, Murphy said he was "determined" to hold all the seats Labour won in 2010, and would soon launch "a massive fight back".

But he also admitted Labour was trying to revive memories of Mrs Thatcher, rather than focus on the current Tory PM, to avoid a rout.

After previously arguing a vote for the SNP was a vote for Cameron, Murphy said from the message from now would be 'Vote SNP, get Tory'.

He said: "It's the same argument but our private focus groups show that the 'Vote Tory' thing has a much greater resonance. Vote Tory resurrects the memory of Mrs Thatcher much more than David Cameron does, that's the truth. Among working class Scots the word Tory is associated with Mrs Thatcher more so than David Cameron is."

As Thatcher quit Downing Street 25 years ago, it suggests a core vote strategy by Labour.

SNP campaign director Angus Robertson MP said: "Labour are clearly in panic mode in the face of appalling poll ratings.

"Perhaps increasing Labour's campaign activity isn't the wisest strategy from Jim Murphy - since it seems the more people in Scotland see him, the more unpopular his party becomes."

The Scottish Tories added: "Quite simply, most Scots prefer David Cameron to Ed Miliband as Prime Minister and, astonishingly, it now appears that Jim Murphy agrees with them.

"Jim Murphy's election strategy has been laid bare - avoid all mention of his leader, drag up forty year old memories of Mrs Thatcher, and hope no-one notices. It's negative and weak."