Rachel from accounts? We can't wait to meet Rachel the chief-of-Treasury and first Government finance minister

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves during her visit to RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire. Picture date: Friday February 28, 2025.

Leaders

Published 3rd Mar 2025, 07:53 BST

It was almost boringly predictable that the first woman to occupy 11 Downing Street would come in for blokey bar-room brick-bats, regardless of the talent or credentials of whomever should set that precedent. Similarly, it was needlessly tiresome for the Confederation of British Industry chief, exclusively in this newspaper, to have to come to the defence of the Leeds West and Pudsey MP. Rain Newton-Smith recalled their time together as colleagues at the Bank of England, describing Ms Reeves – a master of economics alumni of the London School of Economics – as: ‘a very smart, sharp economist…a true expert.’ Yet, because of the society in which we live, that necessity came to pass.

The Chancellor, whilst she would have been grateful for the friendship and camaraderie of Ms Newton-Smith, will more than certainly have thought to herself: I’ll show them.

And here we are; just days following a cantankerous meeting in the Oval Office between the President of the United States Donald Trump and President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, at which the former accused the latter of ‘gambling with World War III’ with Ms Reeves allowing that aforementioned expertise to do the talking.

The Chancellor has announced that she will pivot the £28bn National Wealth Fund, previously ring-fenced for projects likely promised to the likes of Yorkshire and the north of England, then scrapped, towards defence spending, as well as approving a £2.26bn bilateral loan to Ukraine. If this is ‘Rachel from accounts’ we can’t wait to meet Rachel, head of the Treasury, minister-in-chief for finance.