Murray Elder, Baron Elder

Thomas Murray Elder, Baron Elder (born 9 May 1950), known as Murray Elder, is a British Labour politician and member of the House of Lords.

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.

From 1972 to 1980, Elder worked for the Bank of England. From 1984 to 1992, he was member of the Scottish Labour Party, since 1988 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.

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.

...
Wikipedia