Douglas Alexander
Douglas Garven Alexander (born October 26, 1967) is a British politician who is Secretary of State for International Development. He is the Member of Parliament for the Scottish constituency of Paisley and Renfrewshire South representing the Labour Party. On 24 June 2007 Gordon Brown announced he would be appointed as his General Election coordinator.[1]
Early life
Born in Glasgow, the son of a Church of Scotland minister, Douglas N. Alexander and a doctor, much of Alexander's childhood was spent in Bishopton in Renfrewshire. Alexander attended Park Mains High School in Erskine, also in Renfrewshire, from where he joined the Labour Party as a school boy in 1982. In 1984 he won a Scottish scholarship to attend the Lester B. Pearson College in Victoria where he gained the International Baccalaureate Diploma, returning to Scotland to study politics and modern history at the University of Edinburgh. He won a further scholarship in 1988 to study at the University Of Pennsylvania, one of the major American Ivy League institutions. Whilst studying in America, he worked for Michael Dukakis during the 1988 American Presidential Election campaign, he also worked for a Democratic senator in Washington, D.C..
In 1990 he worked as a speech-writer and parliamentary researcher for Shadow Trade and Industry Secretary, Gordon Brown. He returned to Edinburgh to study for an LL.B. at Edinburgh University, where he won the Novice Moot Trophy and graduated with Distinction in 1993. He then qualified as a solicitor. On qualifying as a solicitor he worked for a firm of solicitors in Edinburgh.
Member of Parliament
Whilst still studying, in 1995, with friends in the local party, he was selected to be the Scottish Labour Party candidate at the Perth and Kinross by-election caused by the death of the long serving flamboyant Conservative MP Nicholas Fairbairn. The by-election came in the middle of the Major government and was won by Roseanna Cunningham of the Scottish National Party, but Alexander did well and received enough votes to push the Conservative candidate into third place. This brought him to the attention of Tony Blair - and hotfoot from his defeat by the SNP he was welcomed at the Scottish Labour Party Conference in the Eden Court Theatre in Inverness where he spoke immediately before Blair in the critical debate on abolition of Clause 4.4 of the Party Constitution.
The Perth and Kinross constituency was abolished, but Alexander was again chosen to be the Labour candidate in the newly drawn Perth at the 1997 General Election. He cut the majority of Roseanna Cunningham in half.
On 28th July, 1997 the Labour Member of Parliament for Paisley South, Gordon McMaster, committed suicide. Alexander, who grew up in Renfrewshire, was chosen to contest the by-election and he was duly elected to serve as the Member of Parliament for Paisley South on November 6, 1997.
Ministerial Office
Alexander took a successful co-ordinating role in his party's campaign for the 2001 General Election. He was rewarded by Tony Blair and was appointed as the Minister of State with responsibility for "e-commerce and competitiveness" and the Department for Trade and Industry in June 2001.
In May 2002, Alexander was transferred to the Cabinet Office as Minister of State in the Cabinet Office.
Then, in June 2003, he was made Minister for the Cabinet Office and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Mr Alexander was appointed the Minister of State for Trade at both the Department for Trade and Industry and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. After the 2005 General Election, he was given the role of Minister of State for Europe, part of the Foreign Office, with special provision to attend Cabinet. On June 7, 2005, he was made a Member of the Privy Council. On May 5, 2006 he was appointed Secretary of State for Transport and, simultaneously, Secretary of State for Scotland, replacing Alistair Darling.
Following Gordon Brown's appointment as Prime Minister on 27th June 2007, he appointed Douglas Alexander as Secretary of State for International Development.
Personal life
His sister, Wendy Alexander, is also involved in politics, as an MSP and leader of Labour in the Scottish Parliament. His father, a Church of Scotland minister, conducted the funeral of the inaugural First Minister of Scotland, Donald Dewar at Glasgow Cathedral in 2000. He is married to Jacqueline Christian and they have two children.
See also
References
Bibliography
- Torrance, David, The Scottish Secretaries (Birlinn 2006)
External links
- Douglas Alexander MP official site
- Foreign Office - Rt Hon Douglas Alexander MP official profile
- Department of Trade and Industry - Douglas Alexander
- Guardian Unlimited Politics Ask Aristotle - Douglas Alexander MP
- They Work For You - Douglas Alexander MP
- "Steering safely down the middle", interview in The Sunday Times Scotland, 24 September, 2006
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- 1967 births
- Living people
- People from Glasgow
- Fellows of the British-American Project
- Chancellors of the Duchy of Lancaster
- Members of the United Kingdom Parliament for Scottish constituencies
- Labour MPs (UK)
- Scottish Labour Party politicians
- Scottish solicitors
- Secretaries of State for Scotland
- Alumni of the University of Edinburgh
- Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
- UK MPs 1997-2001
- UK MPs 2001-2005
- UK MPs 2005-