Ian Murray

Ian Murray (born 10 August 1976) is a British politician who has served as Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland since 2020, and previously from 2015 to 2016. A member of the Labour Party, he has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Edinburgh South since 2010. He previously served as a City of Edinburgh Councillor for the wards of Liberton and Liberton/Gilmerton from 2003 to 2010. Since 2023, Murray is one of two Labour Party MPs representing Scottish constituencies and had previously been the only one from 2015 to 2017 and from 2019 to 2023. A critic of former Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn, in 2020, it was revealed that Murray was initially planning to defect from the Labour Party and join The Independent Group, which later became Change UK; Murray decided against joining the seven defectors and remained as a Labour MP. Early life and career Murray was born in Edinburgh, to a cooper father and shop assistant mother in 1976. Brought up in the Wester Hailes area of Edinburgh, he attended Dumbryden Primary School, then Wester Hailes Education Centre. Upon completing his secondary school education, Murray read Social Policy and Law at the University of Edinburgh's Academy of Government, graduating with an honours degree (M.A. Hons.) at the age of twenty. While studying at university, he had a part-time job in a local fish & chip shop before setting up and running a pizza delivery service. After graduation, Murray worked for Royal Blind in pensions management, before being head-hunted by an Edinburgh-based internet television station (Worldart.com) during the dot-com boom where he helped to build a new online TV station. Despite his efforts, the company ran out of funding and he was made redundant; he then founded his own event management business (100 mph Events Ltd). Murray also organised a student exchange programme in Nepal to fund school buildings and staff.