JIM Murphy has made barely £10 a day from the consultancy he founded after quitting as leader of Scottish Labour, according to its first accounts.
Arden Strategies Ltd had just £3,692 in its profit and loss account after its initial 12 months.
Mr Murphy, 49, set up the one-man business after leading his party to disaster in the 2015 general election, when his East Renfrewshire seat was among 40 Labour losses to the SNP.
Its abbreviated unaudited accounts, which Mr Murphy signed off on June 30, cover just over a year of trading, from 2 October 2015 to 31 October 2016.
They state the company had net assets of £33,190 by last October, made up of £14,190 of “stocks”, or work in progress, £17,695 in monies due to it, and £1,305 cash at the bank.
However this was offset by £29,398 owed to creditors.
Net assets of £3,792 comprised the profit & loss figure and Mr Murphy’s £100 shareholding.
The company’s website says it offers “insight, advice, strategy” and describes Mr Murphy as “a business and strategic adviser with a range of clients across the UK and internationally” and “a recognised problem solver with exceptional communication skills”.
It says he led Scottish Labour into the 2015 election, but does not give the result.
Besides Arden Strategies, Mr Murphy also works for the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, often in Africa.
SNP MSP Gail Ross said: “I don’t think too many folk will be surprised that Jim Murphy’s special brand of ‘strategic advice’ earns him just a tenner a day.
“In fact, some would call that paying over the odds.”
Mr Murphy, the firm’s sole director and shareholder, named the company after the Glasgow housing estate where he grew up.
However he was mocked for including the word "strategies" given Scottish Labour's shambolic election campaign.
In Project Fear, the famous book about the 2014 independence referendum and the election, author Joe Pike wrote that Mr Murphy sanctioned “repeated changes of strategy as the general election progressed, blurred the definition of Scottish Labour and disseminated - some of his colleagues felt - a sense of desperation”.
Despite trying to stay on as leader after the election, Mr Murphy bowed to the inevitable a month later.
His seven months in charge was the shortest term of any full-time leader of Scottish Labour since the start of devolution.
Although he had proven to be a highly divisive figure on the referendum and election trail, after he quit Mr Murphy was found to be working on “conflict resolution in central Asia”.
He took part in a workshop for government officials in the Armenian capital Yerevan organised by the Finnish non-profit body Crisis Management Initiative (CMI).
The event, titled “The Complexity of Peace Processes: Learnings from Northern Ireland and Scotland cases”, including Mr Murphy’s views on the independence referendum.
A few weeks after forming Arden Strategies, Mr Murphy was also in Georgia, the pro-Western former Soviet state in the Caucasus invaded by Russia in a five-day conflict in 2008.
As minister for Europe at the time, Murphy played a key role in the UK’s response to the crisis, standing in for Foreign Secretary David Miliband while the latter was on holiday.
Last year, it emerged Mr Murphy held private talks with Tory ministers at the Scotland Office about what he called "political issues".
Mr Murphy did not respond to a request for comment.
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