Reeves risks becoming the latest ‘Chino Chancellor’

Like Sajid Javid before her, Rachel Reeves finds her role in No 11 has been effectively downgraded, says Simon Walters

- SIMON WALTERS

Barely six months ago, Rachel Reeves was in such a strong position that she boasted about her reputation for being tough.

“I’m happy to be the ‘Iron Chancellor’ if that’s what you want to call me,” she declared in a typically robust interview.

How things have changed.

After Keir Starmer's reshuffle, in which he audaciously poached Reeves's second-in-command, Darren Jones, and appointed a new economics team of his own in Downing Street, the authority of the “Iron Chancellor” appears to be melting away.

She risks suffering the same fate as another recent occupant of her job, who found the prime minister had pulled the rug from under their feet.

Conservative Sajid Javid became cruelly known as the “Chino Chancellor” - chancellor in name only - when he famously fell out with prime minister Boris Johnson in 2020. Relations between them collapsed after Johnson lost confidence in Javid and ordered him to fire his closest advisers.