The Alexander technique

Brown’s former disciple is now trying, very gingerly, to reconcile Labour with Blairism

Douglas Alexander is a politician who has risen without a trace. He is now shadow foreign secretary, the third most senior member of the shadow cabinet. He has spent his career in the service of bigger beasts, first Gordon Brown and then David Miliband, so few know who he is or what he stands for. Now, at age 43, he is determined to make himself heard. As he tells me when we meet in his Commons office, ‘One of the vanishingly few consolations of opposition is having a more public voice for what I believe and where I think we need to go as a party and as a country.’

Alexander’s office resembles a psychoanalyst’s consulting room. It is dark, with a shelfload of earnest-looking books above his desk and there are two comfy black chairs that you sink into.