Emma Cowing: It's your life, Wendy, so enjoy the coffee

Published on Monday 21 February 2011 16:24

MY FAVOURITE Wendy Alexander story concerns an incident that occurred a few years ago. The then minister for enterprise, transport, lifelong learning and ludicrously long job titles was having coffee with a colleague.

From the word go, she talked. And talked. And talked. Several times my colleague tried to get a word in and failed, as Alexander prattled on, seemingly without pausing for breath. At the end of the conversation she got up, shook his hand and departed.

Sitting back down again and still not having uttered a word, he peered into her coffee cup. It was empty. He was baffled. When had she found the time to drink it?

Alexander's resignation as an MSP last week means she will have a lot more time to drink coffee. So much time, in fact, that her departure from the Scottish Parliament has prompted a lot of catty speculation over just what a woman like Alexander is doing leaving her job to become a full-time coffee-morning mum.

Not that this is anything new, of course. From the very beginning of her career, Alexander has been scrutinised to the nth degree over her clothes, her demeanour, her social graces - and occasionally even her politics.

Over the years she has developed a reputation for being a "resignation queen". Yet she has always had her reasons. Jack McConnell hugely overburdened her with the enterprise, transport and lifelong learning brief in 2002, and just before she resigned Henry McLeish attempted to pass on the water brief to her as well. And it always seemed significant to me that she resigned from the job one month before her 39th birthday - the sort of time when a single woman starts to think that there could be more to life than a career.

Her second resignation, in June 2008 as leader of the Scottish Labour Party, came as a result of the media baying for blood over a 950 illegal donation. It's the view from many within her own party that she was hounded out.

And so we come to last week's resignation. The Holyrood village, of course, is awash with rumours over why Alexander really went. Last week's Ipsos Mori poll putting the SNP ahead pushed her over the edge, say some, and she couldn't face another four years in opposition. She's been offered some glitzy job elsewhere, say others, and couldn't get out of Holyrood fast enough.

Then there is the rumour that she had been talking openly about taking the role of finance minister post-election, something that had irked Iain Gray and, indeed, current finance spokesman Andy Kerr so much that she was ousted.

What no-one seems prepared to accept is that she went for the reasons she gave. "Many politicians have claimed they wish to spend more time with their family," she said. "In my case it is quite simply true."

And why not? This is a woman who, after giving up a cabinet position in 2002, found love, married and had two children.She has learned the rewards of taking time for herself and her family.

It has been suggested that it seems bizarre that Alexander would quit to be a full-time mother when the Scottish Parliament works such family-friendly, nine-to-five hours. But anyone who has ever met Alexander knows that, had she taken on a job such as that of finance minister, she would not have worked a nine-to-five day. She would have given it her all, as she has given every position she's had in the parliament.

With five-year-old twins starting school in another city, it would have been an exhausting life made up of snatched moments with her family, the demanding drumbeat of politics forever in the background.

Some have said she has let down her fellow women by her resignation. I think she has done the opposite. She has demonstrated that, even if you have a powerful career, sometimes it's OK to put your children first. And furthermore, sometimes it's OK to walk away from that career if you feel that your children are more important.

Some may think she has not made the right choice.Whether or not she has, I stand 100 per cent behind her right to make it.