Douglas Alexander: UK's future foreign secretary or jobseeker?

A month from now, Douglas Alexander may well be offered the grandest, if not most consequential, job at the prime minister's disposal, that of foreign secretary. The dignity and the dinners: how beguilingly they must beckon.

But with the sky almost touchable, his ground is crumbling. For 18 years he has held what is now called Paisley and South Renfrewshire, an example of that ex-concept: the safe Scottish Labour seat. I have looked at the possibilities at Paisley jobcentre, which are not encouraging. No one else in this election is playing for stakes this high.

To add insult to potentially mortal injury, his possible conqueror is no ordinary politician. The Scottish Nationalist party candidate is Mhairi Black; on election day she will be four months shy of her 21st birthday. Until 2006 that would have made her ineligible. She would probably be the youngest MP since Christopher Monck, son of the general who had recently restored the monarchy, somehow sneaked through aged 13 in 1667. But a generally weird election has, in Scotland, turned very weird indeed: victory for Ms Black now looks very possible, bordering on probable.

"It's actually scary," she says. "There are so many Labour voters I know, because I tapped on doors during the referendum, who are now saying 'I'm done with Labour. They're not the party my granddad voted for'."

Later in May, she is supposed to be sitting her Glasgow university finals in politics, with special reference to Scotland and public policy. She is distracted, but perhaps helpfully so: "It's almost as though I'm living what I'm studying."

Most of her press coverage has focused on some raucous teenage tweets. But actually, she's charming. "Are you a careerist?" "Och, no! I didn't even think about being a candidate until someone asked me." Any prospective father-in-law or employer would see her as a catch, if she didn't wreck it by banging on too much. An MP? Well, we are living in unusual times, just like the Moncks.

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He has always been conscientious. Now he is simultaneously chairing Labour's election strategy committee and rushing up here: small, dapper, always affable, in love with both the game and this old mill town, the home of the Paisley pattern, which is slowly morphing into a big Glasgow suburb: "This is the community I grew up in. This is the community I know best."

Sometimes you can sense a coming electoral tsunami by the absence of volunteers, but there was a huge turnout for the opening of the new party office, in an old branch of Blockbuster - itself a silent reminder of how empires can fall. Sometimes you can spot voters avoiding eye contact. But in the ex-council estate of Hunterhill, as safe as the houses you might think, there were a plenty of cheery cries of "Hello, Douglas!".

<>There were other signs, though, displayed more to the team than to the well-respected man himself: the quarter-opened door, the shake of the head: "I've voted Labour all my life, but you know . . ." "You'll have a wee think about it?" "Aye, I'll have a wee think," before the door shuts too quickly to suggest any thought at all.

When they saw him, they listened, but not always for long. There was a woman on the street, who was friendly enough to encourage him to go into full-on wonk-speak, which is a weakness. He got to "The Institute of Fiscal Studies says . . ." which is a killer line at Westminster, when she suddenly said "Look, I've got more important people to talk to," and stalked off.

"We've got ground to make up," he admitted later - though I think he really does believe a 16,614 majority cannot just vanish.

More doors to knock on, then a national campaign to run. A few miles away Ms Black was going through the same process, but the apres-porte was different: "I'll do some revision, watch an hour of crap telly, then go to bed."

They have met once, during the referendum, she remembers: "I was quite unimpressed". He, understandably, does not. He will remember the next time, all right, whichever one is heading to the jobcentre.

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