JIM Murphy is trying to build a new career as a consultant, the Sunday Herald can reveal.

The former Scottish Labour leader, who managed six months in his last job, has set up a one-man company named after the area of Glasgow where he grew up.

Arden Strategies Limited was incorporated at Companies House last week with Murphy as the sole director and shareholder.

The occupation of the ex-East Renfrewshire MP, who has never had a full-time job outside the National Union of Students or Westminster, is listed as “company director”.

Despite the reference to strategy in the name, Murphy was widely criticised for a lack of planning in the general election, starting Labour’s campaign chasing Yes voters and ending it by reaching out to Tories to oppose the SNP.

In Project Fear, the new book about the referendum and its aftermath, author Joe Pike writes that Murphy’s “sanctioning of repeated changes of strategy as the general election progressed, blurred the definition of Scottish Labour and disseminated - some of his colleagues felt - a sense of desperation”.

The book quotes Murphy’s reaction to Scottish Labour’s electoral destruction as: “This is really bad. I thought I could fix it and I can’t. What have I done?”

Labour fell from 41 MPs to 40 at the hands of the SNP in May, and Murphy’s constituency majority of 10,420 was replaced by a winning SNP margin of 3718.

One ex-Labour MP said of Murphy's new venture: “No one is going to touch him with a barge pole. The danger for him is that he’s unemployable in Scotland.”

Murphy, 48, joins a growing list of former Scottish MPs who have set up or joined companies to earn a living outside the Commons.

Barely a fortnight after the election, former Chancellor Alistair Darling - now Lord Darling - set up the imaginatively titled Alistair Darling Ltd with his wife Maggie Vaughan.

In June, ex-Glasgow South MP Tom Harris set up Third Avenue Communications Ltd, styling himself a “public affairs consultant”.

A month later, ousted East Kilbride MP Michael McCann set up MIMC Consult Ltd with his wife Tracy, describing himself as a “political consultant”.

And in August, former LibDem MP Mike Crockart, who lost Edinburgh West to the SNP’s Michelle Thomson, set up the Mike Crockart Management Consultancy Ltd.

Meanwhile former Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander, who lost his Paisley seat to 20-year-old Mhairi Black, has spent two months as a company director.

According to official records, he was a director of London-based Generous at Work Ltd from May 14 to July 16.

Jo Swinson, former LibDem MP for East Dunbartonshire, became a non-executive director of Glasgow-based retail analysts Clear Returns last month.

Besides Arden Strategies, Murphy is also understood to be working on a book.

Last year the dedicated Celtic fan published a volume on football matches.

The SNP said: “We wish Jim Murphy - and all his colleagues who lost seats in May - well.”

Murphy could not be contacted.