to believe Rachel Reeves was crying because

[LargeDeviation]

1. she was upset when Lindsay Hoyle told her to keep her answers short

2. she had an argument with Keir Starmer (possibly about her keeping her job, or about how to handle the inevitable questions about the new £5.5bn per annum black hole) just before PMQs

3. Keir Starmer refused to say she would keep her job in front of the whole country. If he genuinely wanted her to stay, he would just say 'of course she's going to still be Chancellor' and that would be that.

4. she is under immense pressure because she knows she will have soon to breach her fiscal rules, she knows she is responsible for many of the decisions that will lead to that, and she knows the how serious the consequences of her failure will be. We have seen recently (even just today) how vicious the bond market can be.

In short, I believe she was crying because of professional pressures (understandable ones, though largely of her own making, and about which I have little sympathy) and not nebulous 'personal' reasons.

If her parent or partner or child or grandparent or pet is ill the natural thing is to just say 'sorry, a close relative is in hospital and my emotions got the better of me'. Everybody would understand. You don't need huge reams of evidence but you need to give the bare bones of an explanation. She is trying to style it out but we can all see through it.

I will apologise if I'm wrong but long experience shows that 'personal reasons' almost always means 'I'm skiving or jobhunting' when a colleague in the workplace uses it to excuse their time off.

I believe it means even less when uttered by a politican.

I don’t know, I probably wouldn’t have noticed or paid attention if she’d not been there, but this is unmissable. She should have stayed away until she was in control of herself - and taken the time to let her face go back to normal.

Agreed, she's aged hugely. This is when she looked quite fresh faced in 2011...

There is the Horseshoe Theory which Google AI describes as:

Horseshoe theory, in politics, proposes that the far-left and far-right ideologies, while seemingly at opposite ends of the political spectrum, are actually closer to each other than either is to the political center. This theory suggests that both extremes share characteristics like intolerance, authoritarianism, and a tendency towards extremism.

why would anyone think reform would improve things. whenever they get air time they dig a deep hole under the myth of any policies and repeat slogans with no substance.

Saying Rachel Reeves has falsely claimed to be an experienced economist is laughable @Meadowfinch .

She's certainly a lot more experienced than most previous chancellors of the exchequer.

@Muffsies I quite agree, we have seen much worse from other high-profile politicians in the recent past than a bit of emotion at what is obviously a stressful time professionally (and I don’t think we can say it’s not personal, we have no idea what she has going on privately and certainly any time I have had personal issues, work stress is more likely to make me emotional).

I do accept that given her very high profile role it’s not ideal that she seemed emotional, given the way the markets reacted. And this is absolutely something she needs to consider and I’m very sure she is fully aware of. However I think it’s a shame that in this day and age a person under significant pressure at work and/or in their personal lives can still not show any of it publically for fear of being seen as “weak” or less competent somehow. I don’t believe it necessarily says anything at all about her ability to do the job.

😂

Oh - I personally disagree he looks older than his age. His diet sounds terrible (burgers and fizzy drinks) but he is tee-total, which is very beneficial for your health obviously. Alcohol is very ageing.

MPs don't.usually cry in the House of Commons.
She was an absurd sight.

To be fair, we all aged over the last 14 years. Though chancellors and PMs of all stripes do tend to age faster.

This. She deserves the most rabid criticism. It’s not about the tears. She is now a figure of hate, which is entirely of her own doing. If she wasn’t crying over her job performance, she absolutely should be. So many lies, so much incompetence, so much irreversible damage. Blood on her hands. She is a catastrophe.

Every statement in your first paragraph is untrue (it’s almost satire)

May I suggest you take up a hobby? Chinwagging about politics is all well and good but speculating about someone’s ‘real’ reason for crying at work is just a bit prurient.

@MerryMaidens It depends if you think the tail should wag the dog. Look at Brexit and the Tories. It will be a disaster. It’s not good and is now a symptom of constituent pester power that MPs give into. I prefer the MPs to get their points across privately but the Labour slt doesn’t listen. Good leaders take the troops with them. They don’t assume everyone will follow regardless but this agitation isn’t a good sign. It’s poor leadership and poor of the rebel MPs. Only in power 1 year and already squabbling.

Far too much emphasis was put on some poorly thought out parts of this bill, but the backbenchers have given RR a hard time by rebelling. She’s barely saving any money. Don’t blame the press. She’s crying because she’s going to be told to raise taxes. She’s going to lose face. If they raise taxes the share prices will tumble. That’s your pension losing money. She doesn’t want to but the backbenchers will force it. New MPs but old Labour.

Tbf 2011 was 14 years ago @ForeverDelayedEpiphany

I mean I looked relatively fresh faced then!

Their original policy took it away from pensioners surviving on less than £1k a month. Then they restored it to almost everyone which made no sense at all.

An astute chancellor could have limited WFA to those pensioners with an income lower than the minimum wage. Then at least current workers and pensioners would have seen something closer to parity, and there would have been very little protest.

@HauntedMarshmallow this take is completely delulu

Starmer was talking about Kemi when he said she.

Rachel Reeves came into the chamber upset, very puffy eyes like she hadn’t slept or had been crying earlier. She seemed quite perky whilst pointing at Kemi Badenoch during the first part of the exchange. It wasn’t until after Kemi noted that Starmer had been unable to confirm Reeves would be remaining as Chancellor that her chin wobbled and the tears fell.

Rachel Reeves may well have been upset about some personal crisis before entering the chamber, but whilst in it none of the front benchers could be bothered to check a visibly upset woman was ok. It was a man on the second row who leant forward and seemed to express concern. Starmer left the chamber without a second glance at Reeves.

So, my personal thought is that something upset her before PMQs. A gentle reprimand from the speaker pushed her to the brink emotionally and when Badenoch pointed out Starmer’s failure to back up Reeves, it pushed her over the edge and she realised that yes, she will become the fall guy if the country goes tits up financially.

As Chancellor she is responsible for fiscal policy, so the buck really does stop with her. However Starmer cannot be relied upon to stick to any promise he makes, so her job (even for someone very experienced in the role) becomes nearly impossible as there is no guarantee that any expected tax rises / spending cuts that were claimed to be in the pipeline and which she bases her figures on, will ever actually materialise.

Cutting the WFA was supposed to save money, this has largely been reversed and as more eligible pensioners now also claim pension credit, reinstating it for pensioners on incomes of under £35k will cost money.

Cuts to disability benefits was supposed to save money. It was to be offset for the most disabled by increasing the disability element of other benefits. Now, with the cuts largely reversed but the proposed increases remaining, this will cost money.

Both of those policies were reversed by Starmer when he realised they made him unpopular.

If Rachel Reeves has based her economic plans on a net gain from them she’s been given a shock these past few weeks.

I can’t stand the woman and I disagree with her policies, but I think it’s deeply unfair she’s become a walking target for Starmer’s incompetence.

The ‘low key popular’ in fact all of it.

So low key, his popularity is non existent.

Exactly this. I found her change of appearance quite upsetting, on just a human level. She looked like someone who had been crying for hours, not suddenly overcome. I hated the way Badenoch tried to score a point off that. I know, ‘they all do it’, but god, it’s depressing.

She’s wielding power in a job at which she is pitifully inept. If she’s shedding tears of humiliation they’re well deserved.

If she was crying over a personal issue she should have stayed out of the chamber. Utterly unprofessional and scared the markets.

To be fair I was looking back at some old photos recently and I looked a LOT younger in 2011 than I do now. Very noticeably so. I’m sure most of us do.

Haha true