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Wendy and Douglas Alexander will always have each other at least

Back in the planning stages it all looked beguilingly simple, writes William Langley, following Wendy Alexander's referendum call. From the wholesome bosom of a highly political Scottish family would be launched an unusually clever brother and sister: one aimed at Edinburgh, the other at London, and their mission would be to turn the United Kingdom, assuming such a thing was still in existence when they took over, into a seamlessly-ruled Alexanderland.

Those who know the Alexanders speak of an extraordinary degree of complicity between them. Their characters may be different, but they see the world and the answers to its problems through a common lens. "They are both highly intelligent, and ferociously ambitious," says a long-time observer of Scottish politics, "and they would do anything for each other."

Their journey into politics began, as did Gordon Brown's, from a Scottish manse, where their father, Douglas Sr, served as a Church of Scotland minister. A former missionary and prominent Labour Party supporter, he, says one who knows the family, "absolutely embodied the idea of Christian Socialism".

The grand names of Scottish Labour - Donald Dewar, Bruce Millan, John Smith - were frequent visitors to the Alexanders' Renfrewshire home, and from an early age Wendy and Douglas (a middle sister, Susan, works for an international development agency in Canada) had the sense that their futures lay in politics.

It is said that their father first advised that they aim for different parliaments, with the long-term objective of landing the top jobs in both.

Full story at the Sunday Telegraph.