Reeves’ team is scrambling after Guido revealed she claimed her business occupation was “economist'” on legal documents at a time she has since admitted she was not. Hilariously, the latest spin from her team is that she is “an economist by trade”. “By trade” doing a lot of heavy lifting there…
Treasury sources are now also saying “Rachel Reeves was a trained economist that worked in financial services.” Translation: she wasn’t actually an economist at the time she said she was…
Meanwhile, Number 10 still refuse to answer whether she broke the ministerial code by editing her LinkedIn CV, and Tories continue to accuse Reeves of “brazen lies”, being “bang to rights” and having “serious questions to answer” after Guido’s story last night. No amount of valiant efforts from her team seems likely to bury this one for the Chancellor…
Tom Baldwin, author of Starmer’s hagiography, spoke to Times Radio:
Tom Baldwin: “I think he’d like to do something. He’s very dutiful and driven by service. That’s why he came into politics. I think that’s characterised his time as prime minister. He hasn’t always sought popularity or been good at being popular. But I think he has some of the necessary qualities that we actually do want in a prime minister. That resilience, that relentlessness, that ability to carry the weight and the job really does weigh very heavily on people and he carries that weight very, very well.”
Jo Coburn: “NATO Secretary-General?”
Tom Baldwin: “I think that’s something that he would be interested in. I think it probably requires Andy Burnham’s government to support him in that and these are some of the questions which Andy Burnham has to resolve quite quickly.”