Murphy's law
Jim Murphy has had a remarkably prolonged and successful career, considering he started out as an accidental MP.
A charismatic if combative Labour activist, he won what was then the safest Conservative seat in Scotland in the 1997 Tory wipe-out north of the Border.
His delight at victory mingled, I feel sure, with the thought that he was not long for the Commons.
Cyclical politics, he suspected, would take him out again.
However, he has instead strengthened his majority as the Tories struggle to regain the strength that once they wielded in Scotland.
Now it falls to Mr Murphy, a football-daft Glaswegian (is there any other kind - yes, I know there is), to serve as ambassador to the court of King Alex, mundanely known as Scottish Secretary.
As I have posted previously, the office of Scot Sec has been identified, repeatedly, for the political and historical scrap-heap.
Still it survives: partly because of the desire to keep an eye on the SNP in Edinburgh, partly because of qualms over the settlement in Northern Ireland which make it difficult to establish a single minister for the territories, for now.
To be fair, the job amounts to more than scrutinising the SNP - although that is core.
Mr Murphy will represent Scotland's interests in the UK Cabinet on reserved issues such as the economy, Europe and defence.
His office will liaise with the devolved machinery of government in Scotland.
But the political role is still to deal with fall-out from last May's elections.
Mr Murphy has direct and recent experience of that as Europe Minister.
He played a leading role in the Joint Ministerial Committee on Europe: which survived when other elements of the JMC mechanism fell into disuse. (That mechanism has now been revived and JMC Europe has been given an enhanced role.)
By various accounts, there have been some entertaining exchanges between Linda Fabiani, the Scottish Government minister for external affairs, and Mr Murphy.
We can, I suppose, expect more of the same - although Mr Murphy will be acutely aware too that over-zealous partisanship tends to deter the voters, especially when Mr Salmond's administration appears a mite more popular than Mr Brown's.
I gather that Mr Murphy had signalled to Gordon Brown his eagerness to re-engage in Scottish politics after a prolonged spell dealing with UK and European briefs. He now has his chance.
I'm 
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