General Election 2015: Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy is channelling Fight Club on the campaign trail

Murphy is employing rough-house politics to ensure his party's survival

Labour’s Scottish leader has gone down-market and bare-knuckle in the build-up to the election (Getty Images)

With an open-necked shirt, gravel voice, and a bit of rough-house politics, Jim Murphy has once against returned to street fighting to try and ensure his party’s survival.

After the SNP nodded to Citzen Kane, Bond villiian lairs and US-style political conventions to launch their run-in to 7 May, Labour’s Scottish leader has gone down-market and bare-knuckle. Glasgow held the opener in his new fight club that will cross the country over the next fortnight.

During last year’s referendum campaign Murphy revealed himself as a natural brawler. Armed only with an Irn Bru crate to stand on, his serial combat with nationalist hecklers made him an old-style bruiser in a digital age. But it worked.

Although there’s no Irn Bru this time, the crate replaced with a snazzy inter-locking mini-stage, the strategy is the same: you shout, people listen, they change their minds. The big question eight months on: Is Scotland listening?

Near St Enoch’s square, a location that mangles the name Tenue, mother of the city’s medieval patron saint, Murphy wants no confusion over what he’s saying. Joining a lengthy chorus with his band of supporters he shouts : “Let’s get the Tories out.”

The 85 pages of Labour’s election manifesto say roughly the same thing, but Murphy doesn’t have the time for anything like that many words. His seat, and those of every other Scottish Labour MP, are all in intensive care and might not survive the viral nationalist surge.

Nicola Sturgeon insists that if Ed Miliband wants Downing Street, he’ll need to do a deal with her. Murphy’s fight club says something else. Using a microphone he shouts “If you want a Labour government, the only way to deliver that is to vote Labour.” Moving on to zero hours contracts, his words are barely audible over a group of regular opponents who regard Labour as carrion they need to circle round.

The language is street-dirty, ill-mannered and insulting. “Murphy you c***, you’ve never lived on housing estate, what the f*** do you know.”

Others shout “You f****** Scottish traitor.”

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Why do political leaders these days choreograph and secure their appearances well away from the public? This is the answer. The street is a dangerous place.

James Scott is standing a few feet from Murphy with a loudhailer. He wears a T-shirt that spells out “The Scottish Resistance” – supposedly a group of 5,000 “That I lead.” His taunts would be familiar to the old lefties who regarded Keir Hardie’s movement as a sell-out: “The media are corrupt. Scotland is occupied.” The small bald man next to Scott shouts “Labour are a shambles.”

Before Murphy arrives, his aides spot familiar faces likely to disrupt proceedings. The Independent asked anti-Labour activist, Piers Doughty-Brown, standing nearby, if the SNP had paid, contacted him, discussed tactics, or offered encouragement. He offers a series of “Nos” to all.

But on cue, as Murphy promises “Labour will rebuild the NHS, not rerun the referendum”, Doughty-Brown tries to shout him down. When Murphy describes John Major as “reduced to reading press releases written by Lynton Crosby” he tries again.

This is the street, and Fight Club Scotland is not for the faint-hearted.

Because Murphy is no ingénue, he punches back as good as he gets. “I don’t need to take advice from someone with a double-barrelled name. Where are you from Piers!”

Can Murphy’s voice, sounding like a battered engine finding a stubborn gear, take more of this? The truth is he has no choice. Sturgeon has stolen the big centre stage and what’s left is street fight - or nothing.

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