Chancellor in peril of squandering new 12 months fightback and turning into ‘reshuffle Rachel’ after newest claims about her previous | Politics Information

To Opposition MPs, she’s “Rachel from Accounts”.

However in addition to being accused of embellishing her CV, she’s now being challenged about her personal accounts – her bills claims.

The chancellor has been accused of being concerned in an “expenses scandal” when she labored at Halifax Financial institution of Scotland (HBOS).

It’s claimed she spent a whole bunch of kilos on purses, earrings, wine, taxis, a Christmas occasion and – sure – even fragrance.

They’re the kind of allegations that don’t seem to move the scent check, although she insists she wasn’t conscious of an investigation and wasn’t interviewed.

Not surprisingly, nevertheless, Kemi Badenoch is demanding she comes clear “not just about her CV but about the circumstances in which she left HBOS”.

Her solicitor says his “clear understanding at the time” was that Ms Reeves left on good phrases, stored her firm automobile and different advantages for six months and was given a “favourable reference”.

“Absolutely no allegations of wrongdoing or misconduct were mentioned by the HBOS HR team during this process,” insists David Sorenson of Leeds-based Morrish Solicitors.

And a former HR boss at HBOS, Jayne Wayper, additionally insists: “I do not recognise any of the accusations or claims that have been made against Rachel Reeves.”

All this comes on high of extra “CV-gate” allegations, suggesting “Rachel from Accounts” is much less “Rachel from the Bank of England” and extra “Rachel from HBOS” than she claimed.

It has been fairly a day for Ms Reeves. It’s her forty sixth birthday. That’s good.

New figures confirmed the financial system grew barely on the finish of final 12 months. That was a reduction.

However the newest accusations imply MPs are as soon as once more questioning whether or not she’ll survive Sir Keir Starmer’s first huge reshuffle, within the spring or summer season. Not good.

We’d already discovered that “Rachel from Economics” was additionally “Rachel from Retail Banking”, “Rachel from IT” and “Rachel from Administration”.

This time it’s claimed she exaggerated how lengthy she spent on the Financial institution of England. Now it’s getting much more complicated.

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The chancellor initially claimed she labored on the Financial institution of England for “the best part of a decade”, then she mentioned it was from September 2000 till December 2006.

Now it’s emerged she left the Financial institution in March 2006, after she was photographed with HBOS colleagues at a Council of Mortgage Lenders lunch in March 2006. Whoops!

Political opponents – and a few Labour MPs too – are an unforgiving lot and as soon as once more the lady who likes to be considered an “iron chancellor”, within the Gordon Brown mould, is wanting badly tarnished once more.

Her huge downside is that she has continuously boasted about how her time as a Financial institution of England economist and her banking expertise means voters can belief her with the nation’s funds.

That results in a second downside. If all the pieces within the financial system was going swimmingly proper now it will be simpler for her to dismiss the accusations about her CV and her bills.

However critics declare the financial system is heading for the rocks and that she’s in charge for lots of the authorities’s issues: winter gas funds, nationwide insurance coverage will increase, inheritance tax on farmers, and so forth.

So after a brand new 12 months fightback after a earlier bout of hypothesis about her future, the steadiness sheet for “Rachel from Accounts” is wanting fairly detrimental once more.

What she desperately wants is best financial information, a few of that progress that’s proving so elusive.

In any other case, regardless of Sir Keir’s backing for her to this point, she’ll be “Rachel for the Reshuffle”. Or worse.