Pressure is still piling on Rachel Reeves after Guido exposed her LinkedIn CV edits and her claims to be an ‘economist’ on legal documents at a time she’s since admitted she wasn’t. Despite The Guardian scrambling to defend her, and Reeves’ team spinning the story by insisting she was “an economist by trade” (still not an economist, then), the scandal isn’t going away. Both Tory and Reform MPs have accused her of “lying”, and the subject was brought up three times in PMQs yesterday. Even the BBC is now picking up the story…
The Independent has now deployed a desperate new argument to support the Chancellor: it doesn’t matter. Under the paper’s “Politics Explained” section is the article “Why is Rachel Reeves accused of ‘lying’ on her CV?” written by Sean O’Grady. The piece begins by explaining how she edited her LinkedIn profile as it was “a misrepresentation of her actual activities” going on to say, “What’s the problem? ‘Lying’—at least according to one lobby journalist.” It then asks, “Does it matter?” The bizarre conclusion: “No.”
O’Grady writes: “Reeves’ “lies” are nothing more than harmless CV embellishments—a bit of boasting, nothing to get worked up about.” Guido doubts The Independent would be so forgiving if this was about a Tory Chancellor. Reeves isn’t going to get much help with ‘it was harmless’ as her strongest defence line…
Red Wall Labour backbencher Jonathan Brash told GB News that Starmer should resign:
“I’m completely fed up about it, and I think it’s got to the point now where I genuinely think that, as far as the Prime Minister is concerned, it’s not a case of if, it’s when.”