Rachel Reeves. Avoid

“I wasn’t born into this,” wailed Rachel Reeves, as she alternated between blaming misogyny and everyone else for the expectation-management debacle leading up to last Wednesday’s budget. Reeves even held an unprecedented press conference, pointing the finger at “speculation” over what would have been the first rise in the basic rate of income tax since 1975.

In an interview with The Times Magazine’s Tom Baldwin, Reeves lamented: “If you want people to enter politics, you have to remember they’re human beings. I’m a mum with two kids. I’m a wife and a daughter. I wasn’t born into this, and I’m just trying to do my best.”

In saying so, Reeves wanted to emphasise her career is a result of her own efforts and not due to privilege or connections and that the wall of negative scrutiny she faces is unfair. But is she being honest?

Born in London’s Lewisham on the 13th February 1979 (a Tuesday, not a Friday, before the superstitious ask), only months Mrs Thatcher’s began her first term as prime minister. Reeves’s parents, Graham and Sally, were both primary school teachers, with Sally specialising in special-needs education.

They divorced when Rachel was eight. She spent the following years shuttling between her parents and her grandparents, who lived in Kettering. The elder sister to Ellie, born 22 months later (more of whom later), Rachel has described her political awakening in terms of “cuts.” As the BBC reports:

“Seeing the extent of cuts at her school—where the library had been turned into a classroom and the sixth form consisted of ‘two pre-fab huts in the playground’—she claimed to have been politicised by her early experience of public services. At the age of 16, she joined the Labour Party.”

I wonder. According to the Temp, total real-term education spending rose by an average of 1.5% per year across the entire period of the Conservative government from 1979 to 1997. Perhaps modest real-term growth, but not a cut. Rachel’s tangled understanding of fact was to follow her to her CV’s recollection of the start of her career.

But before that, being a talented flute player, national U-14 chess champion and a four A grade A-level student, allowed the future Chancellor to graduate in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at New College, Oxford. Further study followed at the London School of Economics.

If we forgive the future Chancellor’s misunderstanding of the difference between cuts and modest growth, then we can say ‘so far so good’. Or at least, so far so cardboard cutout London political bubble dweller.

However, her early working life became mired in confusion when a series of lies appeared on her CV. After her education, Reeves moved into finance and worked in the City for the retail arm of Halifax Bank of Scotland. Her time at HBOS came under scrutiny after it was revealed that herself and two colleagues were the subject of an expenses probe while she was a manager at the bank.

At the time, a spokesman for Reeves said she had no knowledge of the investigation and always complied with expenses rules before leaving on good terms. Reeves has also faced questions about the accuracy of her online CV, which exaggerated her role at HSBC and the time she spent at the Bank of England, earning her the Fleet Street nom de plume of ‘Rachel from Accounts’.

In response to this scandal, a spokesman confirmed that dates on her LinkedIn were inaccurate but blamed an administrative error. No matter what her previous pedigree, Reeves entered parliament in 2010, aged only 31, to represent the Leeds West and Pudsey constituency.

Earlier, she stood in Bromley and Chislehurst, close to her South London home, finishing second behind conservative Eric Forth. At a by-election the following year, following Forth’s death, Reeves stood again but finished a humiliating fourth which saw her vote fall from 10,241 to 1,925.

For the 2010 general election, Reeves sought nomination for the Yorkshire seat of the retiring John Battle. Despite later accusations of misogyny, Reeves parachuted from the capital into this safe Labour seat via an all-female short list. Likewise, her claim of not being born into such things should be caveated by being married into them.

Sister Ellie is married to the son of the late Bob Cryer, the former MP for Keighley, two small urban constituencies from Leeds West & Pudsey. Sixteen years her elder, Ellie’s husband is John Cryer, Baron Cryer of Leyton, who was MP for Hornchurch and for Leyton & Wanstead before his ennoblement. Those constituencies are only a few tight-packed urban boundaries away from Ellie’s seat in her home borough of Lewisham.

Back in the North, when Bob Cryer died, the resulting by-election was won by his widow Anne, who stepped down in 2010 as her daughter-in-law-to-be stood in nearby Leeds.

So when Rachel insists she wasn’t born into a Westminster bubble, what she really means is that she, her sister, her brother-in-law, and her sister’s parents-in-law are all — or have all been — MPs. And one of them now sits in the House of Lords. Oh, and since we’re on the subject of metropolitan cliques, it’s worth noting that her husband is a top civil servant.

Not her real name, Rachel Joicey’s spouse, Nicholas, is nine years her senior. The 55-year-old studied at the University of Oxford, after which he joined the UK Civil Service to work in economic and financial policy roles before moving into senior positions at HM Treasury. There, he contributed to public finance, budgeting, and wider economic strategy – and wrote speeches for Gordon Brown.

He later became Permanent Secretary at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, leading the government’s work on energy policy, the transition to net zero, and national energy security. It follows that, between the two of them, you’d think they could manage to fill in a form for Southwark Council.

The Joiceys, however, came under criticism after renting out their Dulwich home without obtaining Southwark’s required selective landlord licence — or paying the £900 fee. She said the omission was an inadvertent mistake caused by a letting agent’s oversight, apologised, applied for the licence, and referred herself to ethics advisers.

While letting the property for £3,200 a month, Rachel and her family are living grace-and-favour at 11 Downing Street. The annual income from a second property (owned by her husband) brings the couple’s estimated annual rental income to a cool £74,000.

As we go to press, another kerfuffle has emerged. Following the fallout from publishing its budget response before the budget was delivered, the OBR clarified that its forecasts indicated a modest surplus, contrasting Reeves’s warnings of a fiscal “hole” and highlighting concerns over misrepresentation and the premature political use of its economic analysis.

A late Friday night headline on the Telegraph website reads: “Reeves on the brink over tax lies.” Whether she survives this series of faux pas remains to be seen, but what can be said with confidence is: Rachel Reeves. Avoid.
 

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