DOUGLAS Alexander has retained his position as Secretary of State for Scotland in Andy Burnham's new Cabinet.
Amid a wave of surprise appointments, including former defence secretary John Healey as Chancellor and former health secretary Wes Streeting becoming Defence Secretary, Alexander has kept his job in the Scotland Office.
He replaced Edinburgh South MP Ian Murray in the role last September after he was sacked by Keir Starmer during a Cabinet reshuffle.
Alexander, who left Downing Street shortly after 11pm on Monday after meeting with the new Prime Minister, said he was “very happy” to keep his job.
This comes after Scottish Labour slumped to 17 seats after May's Holyrood election, down from 22 in 2021. The party has lost seats at every devolved election in Scotland, having their highest total of 56 in 1999.
Alexander oversaw Scottish Labour's disastrous campaign.
Alexander has been accused of "going into hiding" since this loss, with anonymous Labour MPs and MSPs telling the Daily Record that he had been the "most absent man in the Cabinet", having "disappeared completely" after the election results.
One former Holyrood candidate said: "Douglas marched all the candidates up to the top of the hill, making people believe they were going into government. His disappearing act since the election has gone down badly."
Leaked messages published by the newspaper exposed a Scottish Labour MP saying that Alexander had assisted in running a “cloud cuckoo land” campaign based on a “fantasy” of winning 38 seats from the SNP.
He has also come under further fire over his links to former US ambassador Peter Mandelson, who was sacked as UK ambassador to the US last year over his links with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
The disgraced peer introduced Alexander to contacts in the Global Counsel lobbying firm he co-founded in 2010. It was Alexander's first meeting as trade minister after joining the Labour Government.
Mandelson resigned from the board of the lobbying firm in 2024, but continued to own shares.
SNP MP Kirsty Blackman said the messages showed Mandelson was "pulling the strings of Douglas Alexander and treating him as a puppet" and showed the Labour MP "isn't fit to be in government" and "must be sacked".
The Scotland Office refused to comment when approached on the matter.
The election results also triggered internal debate over the future direction of the Scottish Labour branch, with suggestions that it should break away from the Westminster party and rethink its stance of independence and a second referendum.
Commenting on the news of Burnham's Cabinet appointments, David Linden, SNP MSP, said: “Douglas Alexander masterminded the Labour Party’s worst ever defeat in Scotland, sat silent as thousands of oil and gas jobs were lost in Scotland and was shamed over disgraceful message exchanges with Peter Mandelson – he pulled the wool over Starmer’s eyes and it seems he’s repeated the trick with Burnham.
“Scotland doesn’t need this servant of Westminster having any say over our future – if Andy Burnham is serious about where power lies on these islands then his first instruction to Douglas Alexander should be to respect the democratic will of the Scottish Parliament and give the Scottish people the right to decide our constitutional future.
“Westminster has failed Scotland and no one is more part of that London based Westminster establishment than Douglas Alexander – through a fresh start with independence, we can build a wealthier Scotland anew, free of broken, Brexit Britain.”
