02-07-2025
Lord only knows the pressure Rachel Reeves is under
Can there be anyone who didn't feel absolutely mortified by the sight of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, crying during Prime Minister's Questions?
It was slightly heartbreaking and very troubling. These weren't misty eyes that could be explained away by adult onset hay fever, or tears welling at the sound of another screeching U-turn on her swingeing (now swinging in the wind) welfare cuts.
This was actual weeping, and it was beyond uncomfortable to watch. If, as her spokesman later insisted, her heightened emotional state was down to a personal matter, why on earth was she forced to sit on the front bench in the televised Westminster bear pit, for all the world to see?
Whatever upset her – she says this visible anguish wasn't prompted by looming redundancy, and some are pointing to a row with the Commons Speaker – it was obviously impossible to put aside for the length of PMQs. So why did she turn up to what was going to be a humiliating exchange about the government's welfare omnishambles?
From the outset Reeves, 46, looked a shadow of her former self. Gone was the shiny helmet of blow-dried hair, the set chin and the slightly pursed lips we've come to expect of the Chancellor.
She appeared sleep-deprived, diminished, dishevelled even, as she fought to control her mouth and blink through the tears that rolled down her face. Show this to your daughters the next time they wonder about entering the 'rough and tumble' of politics.
Nobody likes a full-on altercation with a colleague in the office. After a certain age, we tend to swear under our breath or kick a waste paper basket, rather than bursting into tears. If Reeves had indeed just received a dressing down from Sir Lindsay Hoyle before taking her place beside the Prime Minister, her response speaks less to any innate sensitivity – you don't rise to her rank without a thick skin – and more to the extraordinary strain of the job.
Lord only knows the pressure Reeves is under. Aside from the vile trolling aimed at all female MPs, the mother of two will be working 24/7 under the glare of media, and getting it in the neck from everyone: backbenchers, the bond markets, cabinet colleagues determined to prise more money for their departments, and no doubt about it, a PM appalled to discover the depth of feeling in the rank and file about her scrabbling down the back of the Benefits Street sofa to balance the books.
Now the climb-down has left her with a £5 billion black hole to fill and her reputation in tatters. When Leader of the Opposition, Kemi Badenoch, commented that Reeves looked 'absolutely miserable', she was underplaying it. In truth, she looked broken.
It did not help matters when Starmer was asked whether the Chancellor would keep her job until the next election – and he dodged the question.
'How awful for the Chancellor that he couldn't confirm that she would stay in place,' purred Badenoch. It was a vanishingly rare bullseye, but felt uncomfortably Mean Girls, so nobody came out of it well.
Life happens. Politicians cry. But usually only when they leave their jobs – either voluntarily or not – with the dishonourable exception of our former health secretary, Matt Hancock, who fake cried on Good Morning Britain when 81-year-old William 'Bill' Shakespeare received the UK's first Covid vaccine, but signally failed to emote after he was caught snogging his closest aide in his ministerial office in breach of his own Covid rules, and indeed marriage vows.
What the future holds for Reeves, who knows? Without wishing to intrude on personal grief, I suggest that she rest up, buy herself a Dyson Airwrap pronto, and multi-style herself back into the spotlight before her P45 arrives in the post.
