JIM Murphy has set himself a relentless schedule, not just during the election campaign but since taking over the leadership of Scottish Labour four months ago.

It's not just a never-ending round of speeches, visits, debates, TV clips and photo-calls, either. On the day he meets The Herald, he was up at 5am, seeing in the dawn on a nine mile run. Why the early start? It was too late the night before even for his nocturnal running habit, as he worked into the early hours on a speech.

Mr Murphy admits he is tired. He could be forgiven for planning a couple of months' down time after May 7, whatever the result. Instead, though, he is looking beyond this campaign to a strategy for putting the SNP government at Holyrood under pressure in the crucial period before the political cycle turns again and brings next year's Scottish parliament poll into focus.

His plan is this. Scottish Labour will not wait until the Holyrood elections to put its manifesto to the people. His MSPs will put it straight to the SNP government in a series of Holyrood votes if, as he believes, Ed Miliband becomes prime minister next month.

Like other Scots party manifestos, Labour's 90-page booklet presented a range of pledges on devolved issues, pledges that could only be delivered by a Scottish government. Mr Murphy's difficulty there does not need to spelled out. If Labour wins power and if, as he claims, Scotland reaps an £800million windfall thanks to his party's planned mansion tax, the one-off levy on bankers' bonuses and a reduction in pension tax relief for those with the biggest nest eggs, it will be Nicola Sturgeon who spends the money and takes the credit.

Mr Murphy can, however, pressure her into spending it on Labour priorities.

"We can start to implement Labour's manifesto in advance of the 2016 election and dare the other parties to vote it down.

"We don't have to wait for Labour to win two elections," he says.

"We will say, the mansion tax is here and we should invest that mansion tax in 1000 extra nurses, 500 GPs, a £200million cancer fund and a £200million mental health fund.

"Vote against it if you dare.

"Labour is committed to doing things, the SNP is committed to saying things."

When Mr Murphy, 47, won the Scottish Labour leadership last December, following the sudden resignation of Johann Lamont, he borrowed the same rally cry Alex Salmond used when he returned to lead the Nationalists in 2004: "I'm standing for First Minister of Scotland."

Now he is stealing another of the former First Minister's best lines.

"We will hold the other parties' feet to the fire on their quasi-radical credentials," he says.

"We have a radical tax agenda. We will then put each of these proposals on to how to spend the money to the Scottish parliament immediately.

"These are uniquely Labour sources of funding and a uniquely Labour ways of spending the funding.

"They are things the Tories wouldn't do and things the SNP couldn't do, because these are UK-wide taxes we would lose access to under the SNP's plan for full fiscal autonomy."

The Nationalists' plan to take Scotland out of the UK tax system and fund spending entirely from revenues generated north of the Border, he insists, is a mistake.

"There is a genuine contrast between full fiscal autonomy, nationalism, and Labour's social democracy, our view our view of transferring wealth from the prosperous to the poor across the UK," he says.

Among Labour pledges the SNP will also be challenged to vote down are a jobs guarantee for long-term unemployed young people, increased bursaries for students and a "future fund" giving 18- and 19-year-olds not at university a one off lump sum of £1600.

Mr Murphy has a mountain to climb if he is to become first minister in little over a year from now. Indeed, Tory peer Lord Ashcroft's latest polling suggests he has a sizeable hill to crest if he is to hold on to his Westminster seat of East Renfrewshire, the loss of which would severely dent his credibility as Scottish Labour leader. For what Holyrood polling is worth at such long range, it points clearly to a third successive Nationalist administration in Edinburgh. But as Labour and the SNP square up for the Scottish Parliament poll, Mr Murphy's strategy should, at least, draw some dividing lines between the two parties if Ms Sturgeon rejects his policy proposals.

It will face ridicule, however, if Scotland's share of a mansion tax 'windfall' is swallowed up by cuts to the Holyrood budget over the next five years.

This is an issue that has dogged Labour's campaign ever since Mr Miliband and Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, said Scotland would not be exempt from cuts and Holyrood's spending may be reduced over the next parliament.

Mr Murphy, who had talked up the possibility of Scotland avoiding cuts under Labour, was accused of misleading voters.

Asked whether Holyrood's budget will, in fact, fall by 2020, he takes a deep breath.

"So," he says. "Our policy, which we all understand, which Ed Balls and I have spoken about and agree upon, is to cut the deficit by getting current spending in balance.

"By the end of the UK parliament, by 2020, we'll have current spending in balance."

He again cites an analysis by the respected Institute for Fiscal Studies which suggested the target could be achieved without the need for cuts, depending on economic growth.

But, given the two Eds' apparent pessimism, he is more cautious now about Scotland's prospects.

"Will the block grant be bigger in 2020?

"I want it to be bigger but it depends on the pace at which we have to make the savings and how quickly we get all of these additional taxes in," he says.

If Mr Miliband does make it to Downing Street, Mr Balls' promised post-election Budget should reveal more. The prospect of Labour cuts might yet shape the next Holyrood election to a greater extent than Mr Murphy's pledges to improve the NHS and give young people a helping hand.

Mr Murphy's relentless schedule means he is quickly running late. He has 17 days to maintain the pace until the election. Or 380 days, if you are counting to the next Holyrood poll.