Alexander is Osborne’s new Treasury sidekick
By politics.co.uk staff
Nick Clegg’s former chief of staff Danny Alexander has been appointed as David Laws’ replacement in the Treasury.
David Cameron moved quickly to put Mr Alexander in place after Yeovil MP Mr Laws resigned on Saturday.
It means 38-year-old Mr Alexander, who had led the negotiating team which agreed the terms of the coalition deal with the Conservatives, is elevated to be George Osborne’s number two in the Treasury.
He faces the vital task of working with the Conservatives to create a Budget and then a comprehensive spending review which will implement the huge spending cuts the government says is needed to secure economic recovery.
Mr Alexander was elected as the MP for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey in the last parliament. He was quickly identified as a rising star of the class of 2005 and was made Mr Clegg’s chief of staff in 2007.
He was tasked with overseeing the preparation of the party’s manifesto and was a key figure in the talks which led to the creation of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition.
Mr Alexander’s replacement at the Scotland Office is Michael Moore, who was the Lib Dems’ foreign affairs spokesman under Sir Menzies Campbell’s leadership.
He leapfrogs the Tories’ Scottish MP David Mundell to the position, which comes after 13 years of experience in parliament for the Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk MP.
“(Moore] is a very close personal friend and I look forward to working with him,” the Scottish Lib Dem leader Tavish Scott told the Scotsman.
“I also welcome Danny Alexander’s move to the Treasury, particularly given the important taxation changes coming down the line to Scotland.”
Both men may struggle to sell the spending cuts to come to the Scottish electorate, which has consistently rejected Conservative policies in recent years.
