Don’t buy a lettuce for Rachel Reeves just yet
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There’s growing pressure from political opponents for Keir Starmer to sack Rachel Reeves, but are the chancellors days numbered, or is it all 'media confection'?
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In brief:
- Chancellor Rachel Reeves is facing criticism after her visit to China while the value of the pound fell and government borrowing costs grew, with some comparing her situation to Liz Truss's brief tenure as PM.
- While Keir Starmer initially stopped short of confirming Reeves's future in the role, his office later issued a statement of support, affirming she would remain chancellor for the rest of parliament.
- The criticism is largely media-driven and lacks substance, The News Agents say, adding that removing Reeves would do more harm than good.
What’s the story?
Rachel Reeves is home from her trip to China - although, as Emily Maitlis points out, she “probably wishes she wasn’t”.
The chancellor has faced heavy criticism from her political opponents for Britain’s struggling economy, with some calls for her to cancel the trip altogether as the value of the pound fell and government borrowing costs rose last week.
The visit to China was to try to drum up investment in the UK, and she did, announcing after the trip that agreements reached in Beijing would be worth £600m to the UK over the next five years.
“She's the chancellor,” Lewis Goodall points out.
“If you agree with the principle of going out and doing trade with the Chinese, then it's not totally unreasonable that she would be there. And the crisis wasn't so bad that it would have necessitated her coming back.”
But her return to home soil with some positive news wasn’t enough to put out the political fire, to the point that there’s been talk in comment pages of purchasing lettuces à la Liz Truss in 2022 - a sign her days could be numbered.
Leader of the opposition Kemi Badenoch said Reeves was “hanging on by her fingernails” after Keir Starmer stopped short of confirming that his chancellor would still be in her post by the time the next general election comes around.
His initial answer, when pushed for a "yes or no" on whether she will keep her job in No 11 was to say that he was “completely confident in his team”.
As pressure intensified, with shadow chancellor Mel Stride declaring the PM “will be damned if he does, but he will surely be damned if he does not,” a spokesman for Starmer was forced to beef up support for his closest ally.
“You heard from the prime minister this morning. He was very explicit. He has full confidence in the chancellor. He’ll be working with her in the role of chancellor for the whole of this parliament to grow the economy and deliver for working people,” the spokesman told the lobby. Is there any merit in the calls for Rachel Reeves to go? And how likely is it that it could happen?
What’s The News Agents’ take?
Lewis thinks there’s “plenty of blame” at Starmer and Reeves’ door for the economic difficulties the UK is facing.
Largely, he says, because they relied too much on ‘stability’ as a remedy for the economic landscape they inherited. But stability itself is not enough to unlock growth.
“I think there was a real lack of deep thinking before the election about what they should do and what they would do in the event that there would be an economic downturn or that growth would be harder to achieve.”
However, while there’s space to criticise the chancellor’s economic plans, the bounty on her head, unlike the one Truss faced after her catastrophic mini-budget, doesn’t have an “obvious peg”.
Instead, Emily Maitlis thinks it's grown from a “news vacuum”, something to fill the pages while the media wait for bigger stories to come to fruition, such as Donald Trump’s inauguration or a ceasefire deal between Israel and Gaza.
“The intensity of the criticism of her over the last couple of days, it seems to me, is largely a media confection.
“The lobby have got the bit between their teeth, and have decided collectively that Reeves is on the skids.”
The narrative is of course advantageous for the Conservatives, who Emily believes have “elected to make Rachel Reeves the Liz Truss of 2025”.
“Is there something in the Tory psychodynamics at the moment, which is saying we need to have the equivalent on the Labour side of what we had, which was Liz Truss?”
In reality, it would be bad for everyone if Labour turned their back on Rachel Reeves, The News Agents say.
“It would be really jittery and actually bad for the financial markets if Starmer were seen to just be burning through chancellors, it would be a complete reversal of what they've said before, which is that they were going to emphasise that stability,” Lewis explains.
A chancellor, he says, is unsafe if there is a rival economic vision within the party that grows in popularity - this has led to chancellors being given the boot in the past.
But at the moment, Starmer and Reeves are “knitted at the seam,” in terms of the economic plan, Emily points out.
For this reason, it’s unlikely Reeves is going anywhere just yet, Lewis believes.
“Until such time as there would be a rival economic vision or prospectus, it seems to me, the Labour Party, for good or ill, is stuck with what they've got.”
Listen to the latest episode of The News Agents.
