Rachel Reeves was trying to hold it together, but in the end her lip wobbled and two tears escaped. Distraught and exhausted, Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer sat in the House of Commons, a distressing symbol of a Labour government in deep trouble. And then something strange happened.
As rumours swirled in the City of London that Reeves’ tears were a portent that Britain’s first woman chancellor might be about to be sacked — Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had failed to explicitly guarantee her job — gilt yields started rising. Traders were making it clear they wanted her to stay.
“The question I was asking was can you be the iron chancellor and the crying chancellor?” says one government insider. “Maybe you can.” Will Walker-Arnott at the bank Charles Stanley, says: “This is a rare example of financial markets actually enhancing the career prospects of a politician.”