Paul Murphy has been Labour MP for Torfaen since 1987. He served as the Secretary of State for Wales twice, from 1999 until 2002 and most recently January 2008 until June 2009. Between 2002 and May 2005 he Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. He is also a former Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee and a Minister of State for Northern Ireland before and during the Good Friday Agreement. Paul was born in 1948 and was educated at St Francis Roman Catholic School in Abersychan, West Monmouth School in Pontypool and Oriel College, Oxford.

PubCos in the last chance saloon

This evening the Assembly’s Cross Party Group on Beer and the Pub meets to hear about the continuing pressure on traditional pubs. Here, one of Wales’ leading MPs also raises the worrying issue of pub closures

Beware the Tory Trojan Horse

Speaking in the House of Commons, former Welsh Secretary Paul Murphy has warned members of the Silk Commission on devolution against being fooled by ‘little Englanders’ in a Conservative party that values the Union less than ever

Listen to the Assembly on Policing

In the second of two articles on policing today, former Secretary of State Paul Murphy makes the case against elected Police Commissioners

The leader Wales needs

Carwyn Jones is the only party leader with the strength and statesmanlike qualities to be Wales’s next First Minister. Discuss

No way to fix the “England problem”

Creating a Parliament where elected members have differential voting rights would create an unjust “two-tier” system of MPs – and Unionists should know better

In praise of boring politics

This week’s historic agreement on the completion of devolution in Northern Ireland was greeted with more of a disinterested grunt than a cheer. Good, says one of those at the centre of the original Belfast Agreement negotiations in 1998