On the day Keir Starmer became Prime Minister there was one appointment above all that was not in doubt – that of Rachel Reeves as Chancellor (“I hope you know,” he quipped as he told her the news). In opposition Reeves had made herself indispensable to Starmer by reviving Labour’s fiscal credibility and improving relations with business. Starmer, who does not have an economics background and came late in his career to Westminster in 2015, leaned heavily on Reeves for advice (in 2023, we deemed her the most powerful person in Labour). Here was a truly joint partnership.
But for Reeves, sorrows have come not as single spies but as battalions. Economic growth – on which she staked her reputation – is flatlining and UK bond yields are rising. Business and consumer confidence have plummeted. Unpopular policies such as the winter fuel payment cuts have damaged Reeves’ standing inside the cabinet. A member of her team – Tulip Siddiq, the City minister – is under increasing pressure to resign over her links to the deposed Bangladeshi regime. And, for the first time since Reeves entered the Treasury, her own position is being questioned. “There is one common author of Labour’s major missteps,” an insider told me, “the needless locking in on tax, winter fuel, the farmers.”
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