THE EDITOR, Madam:
I have noticed, in recent times, outward signs of what appears to be debilitating stress exhibited by Britain’s first female Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves. By all appearances, at the weekly Prime Minister’s Questions event in the House of Commons, the Oxford and London School of Economics graduate is showing signs of waning enthusiasm for the job at hand – a mere seven short months since her celebrated appointment by Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
This is very concerning in the context where public pressure in Britain is mounting on the prime minister and his Labour government to deliver on the promise to steer Britain’s economic policies approvingly, in what is proving to be an extremely volatile and unpredictable technologically driven global economic environment.
Mrs Reeves’ subdued front-bench appearances in the Commons besides the prime minister, and her deflated posture, betrays high-level tensions behind the scenes, a not a- typical experience of high-profile political actors in the Westminster system of government. Her particular reality is no doubt influenced by a combination of dampening events.
Chief among them is public disclosure that she embellished her résumé by falsely claiming to have worked as a banker prior to her appointment as chancellor, to be followed by vociferous national pushback against several, if not all, of her economic policy prescriptions up to now, and her forcible admission of plagiarism in her tome on the subject of female economists. Such strain is understandably very significant.
If the chancellor is experiencing mental and physical stress on the job at hand, concerning the sixth-largest economy in the world, then I would hope that should she choose to continue in her role at the behest of the prime minister, that her family, constituents, Cabinet colleagues and Labour party peers in the Commons will foster a supportive environment going forward for her, so that she can, with clarity and renewed energy, guide the UK skilfully and successfully through exceedingly choppy and challenging times .Failing this, resignation or dismissal is always an option.
EVERTON PRYCE
