Alexander, Wendy (1963– )

Scottish centre-left Labour Party politician, leader of the Labour Party group in the Scottish Parliament 2007–08. She served as minister in the Scottish Executive from November 2000, holding first the Communities and then the Enterprise portfolios. She resigned in May 2002 after deteriorating relations with her colleagues and Jack McConnell, Labour's leader and first minister in Scotland. Following the May 2007 election, she became shadow finance secretary and in September 2007, after McConnell had resigned, was elected unopposed as the party's leader. She tried to resist calls for her resignation following the revelation of an improper donation during her 2007 leadership campaign, but relented in 2008, resigning after the Scottish Parliament's standards committee recommended that she be suspended for one day. While minister she was responsible for Scotland's repeal of the controversial Clause 28, which prohibited state schools from promoting the acceptance of homosexuality.

The daughter of a church minister, she studied history at Glasgow University and got an MA in industrial relations from Warwick University and an MBA from the INSEAD business school in France. Before becoming a member of the Scottish Parliament, for Paisley North, in 1999, she had worked as a management consultant and as a special adviser to the Scottish secretary of state, Donald Dewar.

There were calls for her resignation in 2007 when it was revealed that she had accepted a £950 donation from a Jersey-based businessman who was not registered on the UK electoral roll, which made the donation illegal.

Her younger brother, Douglas, was a cabinet minister at Westminster from 2005 and both are close allies of UK prime minister, Gordon Brown.