Murray Elder, Baron Elder

Elder was educated at the Kirkcaldy High School and graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a Master of Arts in economic history. He was a childhood friend of Gordon Brown.[1]

From 1972 to 1980, Elder worked for the Bank of England. From 1984 to 1992, he was a member of the Scottish Labour Party, and since 1988 its General Secretary. He was also a Labour member of the Executive of the Scottish Constitutional Convention (1989-1992).

After this, Elder became Chief of Staff to the MP John Smith, a post he held until 1994. He was special adviser to Scottish Secretary Donald Dewar at the Scottish Office from 1997 to 1999.

He was created a life peer as Baron Elder, of Kirkcaldy in Fife on 19 July 1999.[2][3]

He is the third Westminster parliamentarian, after Chris Smith and Alan Haworth, to have climbed all the Munros, the Scottish 3000 ft hills. He completed his round of the 284 peaks with an ascent of Beinn Sgritheall on 9 June 2007, and is no.3897 in the Scottish Mountaineering Club's list of Munroists.[4]

Lord Elder is the Chancellor of Al-Maktoum Institute, a postgraduate research led higher education Institute based in Dundee, Scotland.[5] Elder was investigated over the payments from the Al-Maktoum College of Higher Education and found that he did not register payments in the correct manner.[6] He was also investigated over the misuse of parliamentary envelopes during the dismissal of the former principal of the Al-Maktoum College.

• Commission on Scottish Devolution

• "DodOnline". Archived from the original on 3 October 2006. Retrieved 19 October 2006.