'IF SHE HAD ANY DECENCY, REEVES WOULD BE GONE BY NOW'

KEMI Badenoch has demanded that Rachel Reeves quit or be fired amid claims the Chancellor misled the public ahead of the Benefits Street Budget.

- BY STEPH SPYRO

The Tory leader said that if Ms Reeves "had any decency she would have gone by now".

And as Sir Keir Starmer got ready to defend his Chancellor, Mrs Badenoch warned: "Grow a backbone and sack her."

Petition

Pressure piled on the Prime Minister as the Tories' "Sack Reeves Now" online petition was signed by 40,500 people by yesterday afternoon.

Critics claim Ms Reeves misled the public on the state of the nation's finances to justify her tax rises, by feeding speculation about a gap in her spending plans despite an Office for Budget Responsibility forecast showing the situation was not as bad as feared.

Nigel Farage demanded an inquiry into potential breaches of the ministerial code that requires ministers "give accurate and truthful information to Parliament" and are "as open as possible with Parliament and the public".

The Reform UK leader wrote to the Prime Minister's independent adviser Sir standards Magnus calling for a probe.

Laurie In his letter he accused Ms Reeves of "a sustained and deliberate narrative advanced across multiple platforms, after the OBR forecasts were known to the Treasury, and in circumstances where the existence of fiscal headroom was not being disclosed to Parliament or to the public".

Writing in the Express today, Mrs Badenoch says: "Rachel Reeves is still refusing to come clean about why she called a press conference on November 4 to warn about the state of the economy, when she'd actually been told things were much better than feared...

"If Reeves had any decency she would have gone by now.

"And if she won't go, Keir Starmer should grow a backbone and sack her." In an awkward TV showdown yesterday, Ms Reeves refused to look Mrs Badenoch in the eye. The Chancellor looked away while she was stared down by Mrs Badenoch on screen before their separate BBC interviews.