As birthdays go, this is unlikely to be Rachel Reeves’s most enjoyable – thanks to an unexpected present from the BBC. Its journalists have been busy digging around the Chancellor’s CV claims – detailed in Mr S’s full timeline here – and the corporation has accused Reeves of exaggerating how long she spent working at the Bank of England. And, in a move that has become almost habitual for the Labour Chancellor in recent months, it appears ‘Rachel from accounts’ has changed her LinkedIn CV yet again…
Reeves initially claimed in an interview with Stylist that she ‘spent a decade working as an economist at the Bank of England’ – although her LinkedIn page asserted she had worked there from September 2000 to December 2006. But it now transpires, via the Beeb, that the Chancellor left nine months earlier than she had claimed online, with photos from March 2006 showing Reeves with different employers from Halifax Bank of Scotland at a formal lunch. More than that, a former HR lead at Halifax recalled that Reeves’s first day was in March 2006. The correction has now been made on LinkedIn with a spokesperson for the Chancellor noting the inaccurate dates were due to an admin error by her team. How very interesting.
And there’s more. It also turns out that HBOS carried out an expenses investigation into Reeves and two managers. A six-page complaint filed against the now-Labour MP flagged concerns that three trio were using the bank’s money to ‘fund a lifestyle’ – allegedly spending inappropriate amounts on dinners, events and gifts. Reeves’s spokesperson insists that the Chancellor was not aware of the probe, followed expenses rules and departed from the job on good terms.
While the initial part of the probe, conducted by Internal Audit, found the three managers appeared to have broken rules – according to a source aware of the investigation – the Beeb has not yet established what the final outcome of the investigation was. The plot thickens…
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