THE SNP last night seized on reports that Gordon Brown will return as Labour's "secret weapon" in the general election in Scotland to claim Jim Murphy was already failing as party leader.

 

The Sunday Herald's sister paper, the Herald, yesterday revealed that Labour plans to deploy the former Labour Prime Minister in the run-up to May, in the hope he can close the yawning gap between Labour and the SNP in the polls.

Party strategists hope that Brown, who remained popular in Scotland at the 2010 election despite being shunned by English voters, can convince disillusioned Labour supporters to come home.

Brown's intervention in the closing weeks of the independence referendum is credited by many in Labour with shoring up support for the Union, just as the Yes side was closing in on victory.

However Brown's association with the No campaign could also alienate some ex-Labour supporters.

One Labour party source described Brown as "our secret weapon", while another said: "Gordon can get out there and help sell our message, just like he did in September."

Brown, 63, is stepping down as MP for Kirkcaldy & Cowdenbeath in May after 32 years in the Commons.

He had been expected to step back from UK politics and focus on international affairs and education.

However the talk of a new leading role for him - just as Murphy made a series of announcements to mark his first 50 days as Scottish Labour leader - allowed the SNP to claim Murphy was already being sidelined in the election campaign.

The Nationalists said it was "disastrous" for Murphy that the party was now turning to Brown, doubly humiliating as Murphy, the MP for East Renfrewshire, was seen very much as a Blairite rather than a Brownite when the turf wars between Brown and Tony Blair dominated New Labour.

SNP General Election campaign coordinator Angus Robertson MP said: "This is a disastrous story for Jim Murphy - he was supposed to be the person who would turn Labour's fortunes around, but is obviously being discounted by his own colleagues after fewer than 50 days in the job.

"Just last week, the SNP had a tremendous council by-election victory in Gordon Brown's constituency, which will no doubt have chilled Scottish Labour to the core.

"Labour have clearly run out of options - and in their desperation to try to hold on to votes they are turning to Gordon Brown as a last resort.

"Labour are paying a heavy price for their toxic alliance with the Tories - and in recent weeks they have made clear the alliance lives on as they voted with Tories to support £30bn more austerity cuts and waste £100bn on Trident renewal."

The latest polls put the SNP more than 20 points ahead of Labour, enough to win a majority of the 59 seats north of the border.

The Tory peer Lord Ashcroft, who last week described the SNP surge as "real", is due to publish polls next week on individual Scottish seats expected to give Labour more bad news.

Murphy yesterday promised to protect the NHS by exempting the health service from a controversial new US-EU free trade deal called the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

Many critics fear TTIP will allow private US health firms to bid for NHS work and let them sue the government if they are shut out, although EU officials in charge deny this is the case.

Murphy signed a statement produced by the Unite the Union calling on David Cameron to veto the inclusion of the NHS in the final TTIP package.

Murphy said: "In Scotland we don't call it the healthcare industry. We call it the NHS and TTIP should not be allowed anywhere near it."