When Andy Burnham becomes prime minister on Monday, he will announce his new Cabinet — and with it, the fate of Douglas Alexander. Speculation has mounted that Alexander, the Scottish Secretary, could be replaced, despite a plea from the New Statesman to let him stay.
Alexander is not universally popular among his Scottish colleagues. Critics accuse him of being arrogant and overly brusque, especially with underlings. He is also blamed for Scottish Labour’s dreadful performance in the recent Holyrood election, a campaign of which he was a key architect.
“Andy Burnham becomes PM on Monday; Douglas Alexander's fate as Scottish Secretary hangs in the balance”
Burnham’s bigger pitch, delivered last month in the People’s History Museum in Manchester, is to reverse the legacy of Thatcherism and return to a postwar golden age of social democracy. He has spoken of “growth in every corner of the country”, “more money in people’s pockets”, and “people taking back control of what matters to them” — phrases that echo Labour’s 2024 local election campaign, when Keir Starmer promised “full fat devolution”.
But according to an analysis in UnHerd, Burnham’s story is as misleading as it is seductive. The narrative that power was stripped from local communities and can be returned by reforming the state is incomplete, the article argues. It notes that centralisation was already well advanced by the time of the 1945 Labour government, which took the biggest step by nationalising municipal services.
The question now is whether Burnham will keep Alexander in place while he tries to rebuild trust in devolution — or move him and risk alienating Scottish Labour further. The answer comes on Monday.
