Murphy's law (From Free Press Series)

Murphy's law

TORFAEN MP Paul Murphy, who retained his seat in last week's general election with a 14,791 majority, has a new job.

He's given up the cabinet role of Northern Ireland secretary to take become chairman of the Parliamentary Intelligence and scrutiny joint committee. In effect, he'll be spying on Britain's spies and security services.

Mr Murphy, who has been the area's MP for 18 years, refused to say if he'd resigned from his cabinet post - or if he was told to leave.

However, he did refute rumours, following his collapse at the Labour conference in September last year, that he was moving aside because of health problems.

He said his collapse was due to food poisoning and that he was now 'feeling okay'.

The intelligence and security joint committee consists of nine parliamentarians, drawn from both the Commons and Lords. It's responsible for examining and reporting on the work of Britain's security and intelligence services including what were once MI5 and MI6.

The committee examines the expenditure, policy and administration of the agencies.

"It's an interesting job," he said.

"There was no parliamentary scrutiny of the security services at all until 1994, so it's an important role. I've had a lot to do with the security services.

"The job of the security forces is to protect the country from internal and external threat - from Al Qaeda to animal-rights protesters threatening to kill people.

"From my time in Northern Ireland I know that our security forces have through electronic and human surveillance.

"It's an unsafe world."

Asked if he resigned from his cabinet post or was pushed, he said: "We don't discuss issues like that.

But he confirmed he was offered the new job after the cabinet reshuffle which saw Peter Hain take over the Northern Ireland post.

Mr Murphy said he found national issues dominated the debate on the doorstep when he was out campaigning before the election. "I covered every ward in Torfaen," he said.

"People wanted to talk about things like the revaluation of council taxes and worries over occupational pensions. I would have expected more comments about local issues like schools but people were concentrating on national issues.

"Although there was also little about the war in Iraq, I think people were fed up of it by the end."

RESULTS

Mr Murphy held on to Torfaen with a slightly reduced majority compared to the 2001 election. The Conservative vote was stable while the Liberal Democrats and UKIP made big gains.

These are the 2005 results, with votes cast and percentage of votes cast. (Votes cast in the 2001 election are in brackets for comparison).

Labour, Paul Murphy, 20,472 (21,883) 56.9%

Conservative Nick Ramsay, 5,681 (5,603) 15.8%

Liberal Democrat, Veronica Watkins, 5,678 (3,936) 15.8%

Plaid Cymru, Aneurin Preece, 2,242 (2,720) 6.2%

UK Independence Party, David Rowlands 1,145 (657) 3.2%

Independent, Richard Turner-Thomas 761 2.1%.

Turnout, 35,979, 59.3% (57.7%)saved thousands of lives over the years