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Labour heavyweight Jim Murphy has admitted the party have yet to give voters a good reason to back them.

The shadow defence secretary conceded the party still fail his test of being able to write in a sentence why they should be the government.

Murphy said: "We're still working on it."

The shadow defence secretary also took a thinly veiled swipe at UK leader Ed Miliband, saying "we would rather be further ahead in the polls than we are".

The East Renfrewshire MP is heading a review of the Scottish Labour Party after May's disastrous showing in the Holyrood election.

UK-wide, current polling shows Labour and the Tories neck and neck, despite the unpopularity of the coalition Government's spending cuts.

Yesterday, speaking ahead of Labour's annual conference, Murphy ruled out sharing a platform with Prime Minister David Cameron to fight the SNP's independence plans.

Murphy, 44, appeared to suggest his Catholic faith could be a barrier to him ever being PM.

Deflecting a question on whether a Scot could again be Prime Minister of the UK, Murphy replied: "Can you be a Catholic and Prime Minister?"

There is no legal bar to Roman Catholics moving in to No10 but one of the roles of the office is to make senior appointments in the Church of England.