Keir Starmer will have to stick by Rachel Reeves – they’re lashed to the same mast | Andrew Rawnsley
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When you’re presiding over a flatlining economy, every error is magnified and there is little credit for the things you’re doing right. Rachel Reeves was making her way to Prime Minister’s Questions when we bumped into each other last week. She is now routinely described as “embattled” or – even more dreaded label – “beleaguered”. So I thought it polite to ask how she was feeling. “I’m very well, actually,” she responded and hit me with a smile so wide and beaming that she could find alternative employment advertising toothpaste.
![[Andrew Rawnsley]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2017/10/06/Andrew-Rawnsley,-L.png?width=180&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Being chancellor is not just a numbers game. It is as much, if not more, a confidence game. The chief financial officer can never afford to look rattled about the balance sheet or fretful about the vultures circling their position. The more reason they have to feel anxious, the more imperative it is that they look nerveless. That she understands. “It’s a tough gig, but there’s no one tougher than Rachel,” says one of her admirers in the cabinet.
For sure, she is a steely character, but it would be surprising if Ms Reeves were not inwardly feeling bruised by her most torrid period to date. The recent surge in the yield demanded by lenders to the UK government took long-term borrowing costs up to the highest level in more than a quarter of a century at the top of the spike. Attempts to assuage the bond vigilantes by telling cabinet ministers to be “ruthless” about finding savings to public spending have agitated all those Labour MPs who didn’t come into politics to do austerity. Claims that there is no way she will be impelled to have an emergency budget containing further tax rises have been scoffed at by those who reckon she can’t guarantee that when the public finances are so fragile. Sir Keir Starmer gifted her opponents some ammunition when he took his time about declaring that the chancellor continued to enjoy his full confidence. The yearning for any sliver of good news was evident when gasps of relief gusted out of the Treasury because the latest inflation figure came out one tenth of one per cent lower than forecast, lifting expectations that the Bank of England will make another cut to interest rates next month.
