Comeback north of the border is seen as key part of plan to make Sir Keir Starmer prime minister
Cast your eye down the list of names in Gordon Brown’s final Cabinet before the 2010 election, the moment Labour was locked out of power for almost a generation, and many have long left politics.
Ed Balls has become a TV star, via Strictly Come Dancing. Alan Johnson is writing police procedurals. David Miliband has changed not just profession but countries, heading up a refugee charity from New York.
But not Douglas Alexander. Having been near the top of the political ladder for so long in the New Labour years, he finds himself back on the first rung: a parliamentary candidate.
“Time away lends perspective,” Labour’s pick for the seat of East Lothian, just outside Edinburgh, told The Telegraph about his decision to return to front-line politics.