Leader of the Opposition Kemi Badenoch wasted no time in pointing out that the Chancellor looked “absolutely miserable” and had been used as Starmer’s “human shield”. Stephen Flynn, the SNP’s leader at Westminster, struck a much more empathetic tone later, saying: “Seeing another person in distress is always very difficult, and we are wishing her well.”
But can Rachel Reeves come back from this and regain her authority?
Kitty Donaldson: ‘The markets have given Reeves an ace to play’
On Tuesday, the bond markets made it clear, by their freak-out over a rumour she could be replaced, that they view her as the defence against spendthrifts among her Labour colleagues.
On Thursday, when asked if there would be tax rises in the Budget, Reeves told reporters that “of course there is a cost” to the welfare changes voted for in Parliament. This is an argument you’ll be hearing a lot in the next few months.
Reeves’s tears have also forced Labour backbenchers to reflect on how they have treated her; to regret the endless briefing that she was to blame for the welfare bill shambles by imposing spending cuts. The mistakes surrounding that doomed bill had many midwives.
“She is an excellent chancellor, she will be chancellor for a very long time to come into the next election and beyond,” Starmer told Virgin Radio on Thursday morning. With that he guaranteed she’ll be around as long as he himself remains in post.
Kitty Donaldson is The i Paper’s Chief Political Commentator
Oh, the benefit of hindsight and LBC phone-ins. The only thing that matters now is foresight.
How does Reeves build that bridge? Recently she said: “Contrary to some conventional wisdom, I didn’t come into politics because I care passionately about fiscal rules.”
Alison Phillips is a columnist for The i Paper and former editor of the Daily Mirror
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square THE I PAPER TEAMRead MoreSimon Kelner: ‘That tear may be what shows us her moral strength’
Today, we have Piers Morgan telling Rachel Reeves to get a grip. “If you can’t stand the heat, Rachel, get out of the political kitchen,” he tweeted in the blunt argot of the day.
We may never know what it was that so deeply upset Ms Reeves, but our see-all, know-all, tell-all culture doesn’t leave any space for the nuanced reading of human emotion.
Given that we look to our Chancellor for coolness under pressure, it’s a hell of a long way back for her from there. But what if it turns out that the source of her upset is of a dimension that it elicits genuine sympathy across the political divide and beyond?
Simon Kelner is a columnist for The i Paper and was editor from 2010 to 2011
Kate Maltby: Reeves is now irreversibly wounded
Other MPs have cried in the Commons, male and female, including the disabled MP Dr Marie Tidball, who broke down just two days ago in frustration over cuts to PIP. But Tidball was a backbench rebel expressing a feeling of powerlessness in the face of Cabinet austerity; Reeves is a Chancellor trying to lead. Tears look appropriate when a woman is pleading and powerless. (There is an entire artistic history of this built around the political process of women’s “intercession” to powerful men.) They look weak when she is supposed to be setting the agenda.
Kate Maltby is a columnist for The i Paper
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