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.

Early life
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, albeit that he was pushed into third place.
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.

Member of Parliament
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.

Ministerial Office
Douglas Alexander was responsible for introducing a flawed ballot paper for the Scottish Assembly and local elections in 2007 which saw 140,000 votes go uncounted. Though he apologised, in the Prime Minister's Questions for 24th October 2007, MP's repeatedly demanded his resignation.

See also