The efforts of Jim Murphy, the Scottish Secretary, to woo Roman Catholic voters and other faith groups to the Labour Party in time for the general election are doomed to failure, warned one of Scotland’s leading historians.

Tom Devine, Professor of History at the University of Edinburgh, said last night that the Scottish National Party had already targeted the Catholic working class and the Asian vote in west central Scotland and weaned many people from their traditional support of Labour.

To make matters worse for Mr Murphy, he would find that many Catholics in middle-class parishes were “not enamoured by some of the humanistic and secular” aspects of Labour Party policy at Westminster or Holyrood, Professor Devine added.

Professor Devine, however, said that Mr Murphy should take credit for bringing religious issues back into the political arena. “There is a silent majority in the UK who may not necessarily attend church every week but they unambiguously have Christian values. Why shouldn’t there be a religious and spiritual dimension to political discourse? There should, as long we don’t reach the madness of some parts of the USA.”

When Tony Blair was in power his adviser Alastair Campbell famously said that the Labour Party “didn’t do God". That might have been the zeitgeist then, but no longer, Professor Devine said.

“The times we are now in, not least because of what has happened economically, may be a moment for a lot more soul searching, and looking at things like values,” he added.

• Full story at The Times.

• Filed under Elections, Roman Catholic Church, Scottish Christian News Monitor.