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.

She's right. We cannot continue to support people who don't need it.

It does seem a bit of a coincidence that you get to the worst most challenging point in your career and then suddenly instantaneously start crying about the fact your dog died or your nan had a fall.

I'm not saying personal things aren't upsetting, but politicians hold it together during personal issues fairly well when it looks like they're succeeding.

I've only ever heard it said when someone in politics knows their job is on the chopping board.

Whatever we think of her abilities, I think we should not be piling on and speculating the cause.

Can we, as welfare claimants, as pensioners, as SME Owners, as private school parents, also be given a break, please?

I thought that about Starmer, so sneering and awful.

Aw, bless

So, your surgeon is having a bad day and has the cries, poor you having to tolerate the result

Your train driver has a sad and is crying tears, poor you and all the passengers, it's not their fault they can't see

your gas boiler check? Yep, the engineer had something in their eye

MOT? Yeah, gaz will do it, yeah, he's got tears rolling down his face, but your car's in safe hands, you'll be fine to get in it and drive your kids

Yeah, everything's fine

The chancellor crying in parliament brings our country into disrepute and worse, knocks confidence in our economy. I have every sympathy for her, I couldn’t do her job. The problem is, she can’t either.

Unless you know her personally anything you or anyone else in here says about her reasons for crying is pure speculation.

I agree.

Awful that he failed to back her. I could not really gauge Rayner’s reaction though - was she studiously ignoring Reeves, or?

I will donate £10 to the charity of your choice if Labour is out of office before 2029.

The PM showed a spectacular lack of
empathy but I genuinely get the vibe that he hates women. He wasn’t even sure what a woman was until recently.

None of these are like what she was doing which was sitting on a bench listening to other people talking.

I'm very happy for you that you've managed to convince yourself of that. Enjoy your celebrations.
Plenty of other disabled people (and families of) feel very differently about Labour after the past few weeks.

I disagreed fundamentally with her (imo) anti-business October budget and it's been downhill ever since. However once they committed to policy statements they needed to stick with them.

She had an almost-impossible job made actually impossible by all these u-turns by the Cabinet.

Other than Liz Truss that is! When she first came out from self exile she did look embarassed and unhappy. Now because she has been proven right about a lot of things, she is as happy as I've ever seen her!! 🤣

Well, yes. You're not wrong there. I said It seems a bit of a coincidence. I didn't say I thought I knew the inner workings of her brain. But we're here to speculate about it, that's the topic, right?

LOL, I noticed that.

I also saw KK on TV the other day, and he looked positively chipper too.

Ain't context a wonderful thing…

This is such a pathetic post, I actually feel embarrassed for you.

She was barely sobbing uncontrollably was she?!

I'm not a fan of hers but I strongly believe shedding a tear does not stop someone doing their job. In any of your examples a moment to compose oneself would allow them to continue and if you engage your brain you'll know that.

Do you think people in these jobs never have a bad day? Never cry, or get distracted, or make mistakes? They are all human too, you know.

Truss? Proven right???

Lost me on that one!

the main reason we pay 108 billion per year on debt interest & in the shite, is down solely to her, she trebled gilt yields... and wrecked a great deal of DC pensions.

If it is one of those I nearly cried in Tesco because I couldn't have more pain relief!

Everyone doesn’t end up causing gilt yields to jump and UK debt interest to go up.

Do you realise how many benefit cuts the Tories did? Do you know they lowered the thresholds for many things including free school meals so barely anyone qualifies? You genuinely don't want them back in power if you depend on benefits.

What’s pathetic is the lack of acknowledgement that crying on the job caused damage to UK debt interest. Perhaps look up what it means to spook the markets when you are the chancellor.

Could you please explain how you've arrived at those assumptions about me?

Are you serious? The benefits bill was at record highs under the Tories. This myth about cuts just doesn’t wash when you look at actual numbers.