Reeves battles tears as Starmer declines to back her staying in post
Chancellor Rachel Reeves appeared to cry in the Commons as Sir Keir Starmer declined to guarantee she would remain in place until the election.
The Prime Minister faced MPs after being forced to scrap key planks of his welfare reforms, leaving an almost £5 billion black hole in Ms Reeves’ spending plans and fuelling speculation she could be forced to hike taxes.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said Ms Reeves looked “absolutely miserable” and challenged the Prime Minister to say whether the Chancellor would keep her job until the next election.
Sir Keir dodged the question about whether Ms Reeves would be in place for the remainder of the Parliament, saying Mrs Badenoch “certainly won’t”.
‘Awful’
The Tory leader said: “How awful for the Chancellor that he couldn’t confirm that she would stay in place.”
Changes to restrict eligibility to the personal independence payment (Pip) were abandoned on Tuesday night to limit a Labour revolt, wiping out the savings that Ms Reeves had counted on to help meet her goal of funding day-to-day spending through tax receipts rather than borrowing.
Mrs Badenoch said the welfare reforms were designed “to plug a black hole created by the Chancellor” but “instead they’re creating new ones”.
Toast
She told Sir Keir: “Labour MPs are going on the record saying that the Chancellor is toast, and the reality is that she is a human shield for his incompetence.
“In January, he said that she would be in post until the next election. Will she really?”
Sir Keir responded with a defence of Labour’s record but no mention of the Chancellor’s position.
As the Chancellor left the Commons following the Prime Minister’s Questions session her sister Ellie Reeves took her hand in an apparent show of support.
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She is just a patsy. I don’t think she actually looks like she made any decisions.
Crying when she sees the prospects of a long career at the top of the pile turning distinctly off colour. She was grinning at the prospect of culling benefits ( and recipients) to balance her miserable budget only weeks ago.
Guilty as charged, Get rid of Uncle McSweeney, now let’s see who rules that bucket of crabs…While Rome burns…
Badenoch, leader of the crash economy party, asking questions of anyone regarding government fiscal decisions is beyond insult. Her motoring mouth is talking her out of a job.
As ever…”Deputy heads will roll!”
Well, the Tory fiscal rules her and Starmer have insisted upon has put them voluntarily into a fiscal straight jacket.
Reeves has wedded herself to the Tory fiscal ideology that the public are fatigued from over the last 16 years, popularity has nosedived as a result and he’s notoriously ruthless. What does she expect?
Political careers nearly always end in tears.
I’m curious to know what fiscal rules should they work with? Servicing debt is now almost 10% of all government spending. It’ll be closer to 15% by the end of the parliament
They could start by refusing to pay Interest on QE money. The ECB doesn’t do this. £30 billion a year interest saved.
You do read some nonsense on here!
The ECB still pays interest on the vast majority of reserves. I think it’s maybe 1 or 2%. And you do know that high interest rates mean the ECB is now making net losses due to paying more on reserves than it earns on the bonds. And guess who pays those losses?! I think that plan has been suspended for over a year.
In any case, this would not be changing the fiscal rules.
What Lord Custard is referring to are Central Bank Reserve Accounts; these hold virtual money, created by the government, to provide liquidity in the banking sector, in the wake of the Great Financial Crisis. Your post suggests you are aware of this, but I include it for the benefit of those who aren’t. Liquidity was the first casualty of the crash; the banks simply stopped trading with each other, while they figured out their levels of exposure. So, the government created £1tn (to emphasise, a trillion) of funds to kick start interbank trade. Technically it is debt, but the government… Read more »
I can’t help but think the real winners in all this are Reform. Many will be thinking, it was chaotic under the tories, it’s chaotic now under labour, so how bad can reform be? In my view, the situation is far from ideal, and few people could do a significantly better job when there’s a 120 bn black hole in public finances, which is not far off what it was when Osbourne became chancellor. Really, labour should have implemented big tax rises last year when they came to power. The trouble is, if they had said they’ll do this prior… Read more »
Believe me – it WOULD be even worse under Reform. Remember they’re led by the fool who started the rot in UK’s position by lying in his teeth about Brexit
I’m not disagreeing with you! The problem is – the more the sensibles look chaotic or out of control, or in this case – unable to do things, the more people will think ‘why not reform?’
Never get in a lifeboat with that man…
on the contrary, the lifeboat he’s in will e the safest place to be
Um, you have share resources to survive no matter how well found is the hull, this concept may be alien to Clark of the Cinque Ports…
Like a song by Smokey Robinson.
Rachel Reeves crying!!!! Are we suppose to feel sorry for her? I am sure thousands of people cried when she robbed them of their winter heating allowance and the threat of losing their disability allowances.