Rachel Reeves - potential successor?

[GroundZero]

Apparently, the Tories have launched a petition www.sackreeves.com urging the PM to sack the Chancellor, after she was accused of misleading the public over the state of the UK’s finances.

If she is sacked, who could/should replace her?

Farage has called for an enquiry into a ministerial code breach, what on earth was RR thinking.

Good. They can’t just let this be swept under the carpet. What does it say about politics, if all our politicians say nothing. I’m no farage fan, but in this I applaud him, as I do the tories requesting the fca investigation.

we all know they aren’t going quietly, we all know starmer will get up and lie tomorrow, protecting her, protecting himself. And we all know it’s going to make it worse, treating the public like idiots.

the centre for social justice has now said An unemployed single parent with three kids will get a net 38k a year, 4 kids and it’s 44k, a family working need to be earning 71k before tax to even match what an unemployed family with 4 kids will now get in benefits.

Normal working families are now better off Unemployed. 2 parents on minimum wage can’t come close to what they can get given in benefits.

and Labour lied to do it.

Why did she mislead parliament or voters. Thanks to years of Tory cuts and Brexit the state of our finances means tax rises are inevitable.

Personally it's another example of male oriented politics....a woman gets into number 10 or 11 and they are hounded

Her last budget was a one off tax hike. The combined £70bn tax and borrowing meant the slate was clean.

I see similar for hounding KB on here which Labour seem quite keen to do. On this Starmer is as culpable or more so.

Oxford and then a Masters at LSE. She must be intelligent.

Ffs 😡

Are you joking? She clearly mislead parliament and the public re: mythical "black hole" plus last budget being 1 and done. Re: the last one Trevor Phillips played her back a video of her saying to him that it was "1 and done" last year and they wouldn't need to come back for more.

There other examples of people that have been rather successful academically but do not have the right personality or temperament for this kind of roles. Kwasi comes to mind - stellar academics (Eton, double first at Cambridge, Harvard scholar, PhD), notoriously over-confident, not listening to advice from officials, etc. Liz Truss (less glowing academically but still PPE at Oxford), was the same. The self-assurance and dogged pursuit of issues that can be brilliant academic can tip into arrogance and self-delusion. I have always thought that she is not that different from Liz Truss in terms of her character at work.

What makes a good politician and good minister is much more than being academically strong.

His actions speak of a man who cannot lead his party. Hes not 'far Left'. Hes a Centrist, which was partly why Labour are in power. What he can't do is get his hard Left backbenchers ( most of them who've only been MP's for 17 months) to back their own government despite them being elected on the back of a Labour manifesto. They all have paper thin majorities. Labour has always been almost impossible to hold together as a party because of the opposing factions within it. Only a very strong leader with a massive ' Malcolm Tucker' type strongman behind them have any hope of doing it. Labour as a party would rather be out of power than have to compromise. Half of them live in a world where they think they can trojan horse their way into power and we'll all live in a Scandi wonderland but without their pretty stringent welfare policies and the fact that they not only tax the rich, but tax the poor. A lot. The Tories were always past masters at party unity. Cameron and Brexit caused the end of that and collapsed the Tores eventually but its what had made Labour unelectable for most of their existence. They don't care. The unions don't care. They love opposition with no responsibilities so they can live in cloud cuckoo land.

An unemployed single parent with three kids will get a net 38k

Can you show the calculations for this?

A non-working single parent will be subject to the benefit cap of £22,020 per year, £25,323 if they are in London. If there are people with disabilities in the household, the cap doesn't apply, but you haven't specified whether that is the case in your example.

You can google. The centre for social justice has published the maths.

The calculation is hugely distorted. It assumes one full time and one part time minimum wage income and doesn’t specify the number of children in this hypothetical family. It assumes no claim of in work benefits including child benefit and housing benefit. I can’t copy and paste it but you’ll find it here on page 9. Essentially there is no maths.

https://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/CSJ-Benefits_Budget.pdf

It assumes 4 children. There is also an assessment with 3 and 5, and also if parents get pip, which increases it further,

Thank you. So the claim by @TheRealGoose that an "unemployed single parent with three kids will get a net 38k" is actually untrue. Because in that case the benefit cap would apply. Unless there are disabled people in the household.

Which page is that on?

They aren’t with the Tories, either, given they are more unpopular than they have ever been!

I don't care how much they pay people on welfare as long as they can afford to live. Why are people so upset about welfare increases when we've all had inflation busting pay rises over the last 5 years.

Industry has returned to growth despite all the doom mongers. Labour policy is working and key manifesto policy to reduce child poverty.... again another step closer.

Farage on the other hand would see children destitute, educational outcomes reduced, reduced min wage, reduced holidays, reduced workers rights.....

I'll vote Labour next time

I think RR is a compulsory liar. She lied on her CV, lied in the November 4th speak and lied to her own cabinet. Her own cabinet are briefing against her and Starmer. He is as bad as she is because he knew there was no black hole but signed off her speech saying there was one. They both have to go. They have deliberately misled the money markets. People have drawn down their pensions, some even left the country because of her lies. The pair have to go so Labour can rebuild.

Well at least someone is having a good day - I
admire your optimism, even if the rest of us are living in an very different country right now.

I don’t think small businesses would share their view. Particularly hospitality.

The Tories have put the country in the state it's it. Austerity is their favourite thing to use to cut public spending.
But people read The Daily mail, The Sun, The Telegraph etc and lap up their propaganda. The Conservative Party is for a small percentage of people in this country but with the use of the media they convince you to work against your best interests.

It’s not really about who reads what paper — it’s about the fact that Britain has been in decline for a long time.

Austerity didn’t fix things and neither will this Labour government.

All they have put forward so far, are stealth taxes and welfare expansion.

You say that the “Conservative Party is for a small percentage of people in this country” but Labour got a huge majority on one of the lowest turnouts in decades.

MNLurker1345 You say that the “Conservative Party is for a small percentage of people in this country” but Labour got a huge majority on one of the lowest turnouts in decades.

Sorry I don't understand your point.
I think that the Tories and their policies only benefit a minority of people in the UK.

I didn’t actually say that, I quoted you!

My point was that the Labour Party did not win
the general election with a super massive turnout, which challenges the idea that Labour are the party of the masses, in
contrast to - quote @Annettebee “the
conservative party is for a small percentage of people in this country”.

Call it semantics!

Maybe you should have some patience because things take many years to improve. The country has returned to industrial growth with manufacturing output increasing for the first time in 10 years.

It's been a rough year for many but look at things like Jaguar Land Rover and the cyber attack that halted production...that's not the governments fault. Look at what Trump has done to world trade....it's caused a complete global shift and put a lot of pressure on prices.

We have family in America and right now things are tough. The cost of living, which traditionally was low, is now higher than Europe. So despite all the low taxes your food shop will be higher across the pond than it is here.

I'm a heating engineer and it's brisk and no shortage of work. I've always paid my apprentices well above the minimum wage. My year three apprentices typically earn £43,000 a year....they earn there money and it's only right that's paid to them. So this idea we should pay young people less boils my piss, because it sounds like an excuse to exploit.

Despite all the doom and gloom this country should hold it's head up high and be proud of it's welfare system, the fact it's changed from the dark years of Thatcher where young people were exploited and forced onto YTS for 27 quid a week. We voted a government in that promised to make the country fairer and this is what they are doing.

So my heart bleeds for the billionaires, property tycoons turning homes into HMOs, the final salary pension brigade who do nothing but moan about how bad things are when in fact they have had the skin off the rice pudding for decades. People need to accept that the services we receive cost pounds and pennies and they ain't free. So the choice is have a welfare system that is fit for purpose or end up like America or India where the poorest are destitute.

We need ten years of stability now not chaos that will come from Farage. Look Brexit, David Cameron, George Osborne, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown....all the heavy weights warned of falling living standards.....Hesaltine warned of catastrophic consequences. Yet people honestly think Farage hold the answers. Even a dog can link pain with the abuser....come on people wake up.