Political Career
Whilst still studying, in 1995, with friends in the local party and the backing of Gordon Brown—his mentor—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 constituency at the 1997 general election. He was pushed into third place behind the SNP and the Conservatives.
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