Rachel Reeves was last week seen with tears rolling down her face during PMQs – but the defiant Chancellor has since coming out fighting and ‘cracking on’ with the job
Defiant Rachel Reeves has been spotted in the chamber a week after crying during PMQs.
The Chancellor appeared in the Commons sitting next to Keir Starmer, as she nodded and smiled as the PM answered questions. It was a significant difference to Ms Reeves’ emotional display at PMQs last week.
Ms Reeves last week came out fighting after appearing to cry at PMQs on Wednesday. Speaking the following day, she said she was “clearly upset” in the Commons – but declined to give a reason behind her tears. “Today’s a new day and I’m just cracking on with the job,” she said defiantly.
She told broadcasters: “Clearly I was upset yesterday and everyone could see that. It was a personal issue and I’m not going to go into the details of that. My job as Chancellor at 12 o’clock on a Wednesday is to be at PMQs next to the Prime Minister, supporting the Government and that’s what I tried to do.
“I guess the thing that maybe is a bit different between my job and many of your viewers’ is that when I’m having a tough day it’s on the telly and most people don’t have to deal with that.”
READ MORE: Rachel Reeves admits to being upset over ‘personal issue’ but comes out fighting
Ms Reeves had appeared tearful at PMQs last week, which came a day after the Government suffered a major rebellion over its welfare reforms. Keir Starmer failed to back his Chancellor when asked at PMQs but Downing Street confirmed after the session that Ms Reeves was not going anywhere.
Asked whether she was surprised that the Prime Minister had not offered her more full-throated backing in the chamber, Ms Reeves said: “I think that people can see that Keir and me are a team.
“We fought the election together, we changed the Labour Party together so that we could be in the position to return to power and over the past year we’ve worked in lockstep together whether that is on the budget, on the spending review or indeed on our measures to improve public services like the 10-year plan for the NHS.”
Ms Reeves made the comments after appearing at the launch of the 10-year plan for the NHS. She was introduced by Health Secretary Wes Streeting, before she then welcomed the Prime Minister to the stage. Keir Starmer and Ms Reeves embraced as he made his way to the podium.
At a Q&A at the end of the event, the PM admitted he did not “appreciate” that Ms Reeves was crying behind him at Prime Minister’s Questions because of the swift nature of the Commons debate.
Asked why he did not react to the Chancellor’s tears, Mr Starmer told reporters: “I didn’t appreciate what was happening because, as you will probably appreciate, PMQs is pretty wired. It goes from question to question and I am literally up, down, question, looking at who is asking me a question, thinking about my response and getting up and answering it.
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