Douglas Alexander Quotes

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Douglas Alexander

Profession : Politician

Birth : October 26, 1967

We'll set our approach to borrowing, to spending, to taxation, in a sensible way on a sensible timescale.

Douglas Alexander

The Conservatives are so busy focusing on yesterday, they're not focused on tomorrow... on how elections are won in the 21st century.

Douglas Alexander

If Nick Clegg hadn't been sitting around the cabinet table, we wouldn't have had the bedroom tax; we wouldn't have had the rise in tuition fees. We wouldn't have had the mistakes we've seen in economic policy.

Douglas Alexander

I take UKIP very seriously. The truth is that UKIP presents an electoral challenge to all political parties. The way to defeat UKIP is not to be a better UKIP but to be a better Labour Party.

Douglas Alexander

The depth of concern people feel about UKIP is not always matched by depth of understanding.

Douglas Alexander

Of course we need to show we are a genuine alternative to an unpopular, Conservative-led government. But we need to set ourselves a higher standard than a party offering anger like UKIP.

Douglas Alexander

Of course we are looking to win support across every section of society. We win support by speaking to voters on the issues they most care about.

Douglas Alexander

I've never been interested in self-promotion and that side of politics; and if that means people judge that you're less prominent than others, that's a choice I've been willing to make.

Douglas Alexander

David Cameron can change the branding of the party, but he can't change the beliefs.

Douglas Alexander

I'm in agreement with David Miliband when he says our generation of Labour politicians are not willing to hand over the direction of the country without a serious electoral fight.

Douglas Alexander

My general approach to opposition is where the government is getting something right, we should say so. And where we disagree with them, we should say so, too.

Douglas Alexander

I think politicians who suggest they are uninterested in the support of newspapers are not being straight with people.

Douglas Alexander

What matters in any campaign is that you have a strategic core that makes the judgements, decides the strategy, and can deliver.

Douglas Alexander

I do think our challenge is to balance credibility and a clear message about how we would reduce the deficit with boldness about the choices that we put before the public.

Douglas Alexander

It would be wrong for us to offer difference from the Conservative Party at the cost of credibility, but equally it would be wrong to offer credibility at the cost of being clear that there remain very fundamental differences.

Douglas Alexander

Politicians often reveal most about themselves in unguarded moments.

Douglas Alexander

A self-evidently confident politician, Cameron still suffers from a curious hollowness. Ten years after he became Conservative leader, many people still question what he actually stands for or believes in.

Douglas Alexander

Being prime minister is not a job to be performed with an eye for the exit.

Douglas Alexander

As shadow foreign secretary, I have been as clear in my support for the government when it does something we agree with as I am in highlighting that which we oppose.

Douglas Alexander

David Cameron's approach has left Britain weakened and weary because to retreat from the world is as foolish as it is futile.

Douglas Alexander