Best Of

It's just possible that we are living through another generational political shift. The Tories have shat themselves inside out. Labour have been in office for less than 5 months and everyone is sick of them.

Reform are very serious about becoming very serious. Despite the usual "lets all point at the lunatics and fruitcakes" response from the mainstream, their organising is starting to look professional and they are picking up a very large number of members.

And I have to put a word in for my own LibDems. As so many people note, once we dig in we dig in deep. And with the big two in disarray the opportunity is there to keep the momentum going.

Once politicians lose their contact with reality they are finished. The Tories are on planet Zog, Labour are sailing off into the distance not having realised that they aren't taking the country with them. That creates a vacuum, and all kinds of things will get sucked in...

I think the problem for Reform is that, a bit like the Lib Dems at times, they are winning as 'we are not like them'. The Lib Dems imploded after the coalition because they were shown to be just like the rest i.e. being in power means you have to compromise. Governing is to choose and all that. I have no idea what Reform stand for, other than a strong suspicion its no more immigration, low taxes and England winning at sport. Being a protest vote is ok until you win.

Rachel Reeves’s real banking roles revealed after claim she was an economist

Sources have told the i that rather than being an economist, she worked in customer relations and mortgages.

However, a source close to Ms Reeves explained to i the change was as a result of a one of her staff incorrectly listing the job description on the business networking site.

https://inews.co.uk/news/rachel-reeves-banking-roles-revealed-cv-3390856

Embellishing her CV has failed to get me particularly excited, but this...liar, liar, pants on fire.....why is a lacky doing your LinkedIn profile...and you never checked what they put on it..... Come on man.....

Her role was variously described as an 'analyst' and an 'economist' in earlier profiles:

Guardian 2011:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/oct/23/rachel-reeves-new-era-labour

"I've got two economics degrees," she says, through gritted teeth. She has also had stints at the Bank of England, the British Embassy in Washington and as an analyst at HBOS...

Unlike Ed Balls, Reeves is untainted by New Labour's love affair with light-touch City regulation (her career at HBOS was based in its retail division up in Yorkshire, not among the high-rollers in the capital).

Telegraph 2012:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/9014203/Rachel-Reeves-the-chess-expert-who-may-end-up-as-queen-of-Labour.html

A junior chess champion from a relatively humble background, she spent 10 years as an economist for the Bank of England, HBOS and at the British embassy in Washington before entering Parliament.

Speaking as someone who has worked as an economist my entire professional life, I find this whole discussion somewhat pointless. Reeves has a bachelor's and masters degree in economics. She worked in a role entitled economist at the BOE (I have never met her myself but I know people who worked with her at the BOE and consider her a talented economist). At HBOS she worked in some role that, it seems, may not have had the job title "economist". But she may well have drawn on her economics training in the job and considered it an "economics job". Referring to herself as an economist across both roles therefore doesn't seem a particularly egregious crime. It's not as if being an economist is such an exalted position in a financial institution - if only it was!