Chancellor in danger of squandering new year fightback and becoming ‘reshuffle Rachel’ after latest claims about her past | Politics News

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

But as well as being accused of embellishing her CV, she’s now being challenged about her own accounts – her expenses claims.

The chancellor has been accused of being involved in an “expenses scandal” when she worked at Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS).

It’s claimed she spent hundreds of pounds on handbags, earrings, wine, taxis, a Christmas party and – yes – even perfume.

They’re the sort of allegations that don’t appear to pass the smell test, though she insists she wasn’t aware of an investigation and wasn’t interviewed.

Not surprisingly, however, Kemi Badenoch is demanding she comes clean “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 terms, kept her company car and other benefits 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, also insists: “I do not recognise any of the accusations or claims that have been made against Rachel Reeves.”

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

It has been quite a day for Ms Reeves. It’s her 46th birthday. That’s nice.

New figures showed the economy grew slightly at the end of last year. That was a relief.

But the latest accusations mean MPs are once again questioning whether she’ll survive Sir Keir Starmer’s first big reshuffle, in the spring or summer. Not good.

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

This time it’s claimed she exaggerated how long she spent at the Bank of England. Now it’s getting even more confusing.

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The chancellor originally claimed she worked at the Bank of England for “the best part of a decade”, then she said it was from September 2000 until December 2006.

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

Political opponents – and some Labour MPs too – are an unforgiving lot and once again the woman who likes to be thought of as an “iron chancellor”, in the Gordon Brown mould, is looking badly tarnished again.

Her big problem is that she has constantly boasted about how her time as a Bank of England economist and her banking experience means voters can trust her with the nation’s finances.

That leads to a second problem. If everything in the economy was going swimmingly right now it would be easier for her to dismiss the accusations about her CV and her expenses.

But critics claim the economy is heading for the rocks and that she’s to blame for many of the government’s problems: winter fuel payments, national insurance increases, inheritance tax on farmers, and so on.

So after a new year fightback after a previous bout of speculation about her future, the balance sheet for “Rachel from Accounts” is looking pretty negative again.

What she desperately needs is better economic news, some of that growth that’s proving so elusive.

Otherwise, despite Sir Keir’s backing for her so far, she’ll be “Rachel for the Reshuffle”. Or worse.