A FORMER aide to Donald Dewar has turned his back on Scottish politics and become a potential candidate for the Conservatives south of the border.
Tim Luckhurst, who worked for the late first minister while he was still a Labour MP, was also once a Labour candidate himself. However, he said he had recently joined the Tories because of David Cameron's potential to lead the party in a new direction.
His wife, Dorothy, is a familiar figure in Glasgow Tory circles, and has been an unsuccessful candidate in the city's council, Holyrood and Westminster elections. She also stood at the recent general election in the safe Labour seat of Blaydon, near Gateshead.
Despite working for the father of devolution, Mr Luckhurst, 42, is a vociferous critic of Holyrood and the Scottish Executive.
His move south followed an approach from "senior figures" in London who asked if he would consider being aWestminster candidate. He is now approved in principle as a Tory candidate in England, but has yet to try for selection in a particular constituency.
"It's a question of whether I can do something useful, " he said. "It's not about personal ambition, it really is not.
"I joined as I believed that David Cameron would make a fantastic leader, and my decision to join was based on a clear decision that if he was not elected leader I would not stand for election.
"I'm overjoyed that he has been elected leader.
"He represents the strain of non-ideological reformist politics that I'm interested in. I have no interest whatsoever in standing for the Scottish Parliament."
DavidWhitton, who wasMr Dewar's special adviser when he was first minister, and who is now Labour's Holyrood candidate for Strathkelvin and Bearsden in 2007, said he was staggered by Mr Luckhurst's conversion.
He said: "Our paths have crossed a couple of times. When he was working at the BBC and I was at STV, he was known as Tim 'Nae' Luckhurst because everything he seemed to touch turned to dust. He would also bang on about how New Labour he was, so I'm astonished to hear he's become a Conservative."
Tory party approval means Mr Luckhurst is able to seek a nomination anywhere south of the border, and his background offers him a number of choices. He was born in Sheffield, his mother was Cornish, while his father was from London.
However, as a journalist for many years, his prolific output may provide political enemies with ammunition. In 2002, in an article for The Herald, he wrote of Tory ladies "crowned with blue-rinse hair to insulate their blue-rinse minds".
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