Rachel Reeves: chess champ checkmated by her own party

•  Rachel Reeves had 'altercation' before entering Commons as Downing Street responds to teary appearance at PMQs: Live updates

The forlorn figure cut by Rachel Reeves in the Commons today was a million miles from the 'Iron Chancellor' persona she envisaged when she entered No11 almost a year ago.

The 46-year-old stoked rumours she planned to step down after she wept during Prime Minister's Questions - with Sir Keir Starmer publicly refused to guarantee her job. 

After a hammering at the hands of spendthrift Labour MPs unwilling to cut the astronomical welfare bill, the Prime Minister failed to repeat his promise on her staying in No11 until the next election.

On Wednesday Labour MPs forced her and Sir Keir Starmer to rip up their plans to improve the UK economy when they refused to back a £5bn cut to welfare payments for disabled recipients.

She was already under fire over her Budget last year which increased taxes by £40billion and cuts to winter fuel payments for pensioners.

The Chancellor was visibly tearful as the exchanges unfolded and her sister Ellie, the Labour minister appeared to be holding her hand as she later left the chamber.

It left Westminster asking if it was the end of the road for Ms Reeves, a former chess champion who had set out plans to be the country's 'iron' Chancellor with a firm hand on the nation's finances.

But both the Treasury and No10 later insisted she was going nowhere. 

The 46-year-old stepped down hours after she wept during Prime Minister's Questions when Sir Keir Starmer publicly refused to guarantee her job.

It marked the end of the road for Ms Reeves, a former chess champion who had set out plans to be the country's 'iron' Chancellor with a firm hand on the nation's finances.

The MP for Leeds West and Pudsey (pictured in 2006) was first elected to Parliament in 2010 and became the shadow chancellor in Sir Keir's opposition Cabinet in 2021.

Ms Badenoch had said: 'This man has forgotten that his welfare bill was there to plug a black hole created by the Chancellor. Instead they're creating new ones. They're creating new ones.

'(Ms Reeves) is pointing at me, she looks absolutely miserable. Labour MPs are going on the record saying that the Chancellor is toast, and the reality is that she is a human shield for his incompetence. In January, he said that she would be in post until the next election. Will she really?'

With Ms Reeves visibly upset behind him, Sir Keir replied: '(Mrs Badenoch) certainly won't. I have to say, I'm always cheered up when she asks me questions or responds to a statement because she always makes a complete mess of it and shows just how unserious and irrelevant they are.

'She talks about the black hole, they left a £22 billion black hole in our economy and we're clearing it up, and I'm really proud that in the first year of a Labour Government, we got free school meals, breakfast clubs, childcare, got £15 billion invested in transport in the North and the Midlands.

'We're cutting regulation, planning and infrastructure is pounding forward, building 1.5 million homes, the biggest investment in social and affordable housing, and of course the three trade deals.'

Mrs Badenoch replied: 'How awful for the Chancellor that he couldn't confirm that she would stay in place.'

Ms Reeves was born in Lewisham and grew up in south London. She studied PPE at Oxford and has a Master's degree in economics from the LSE.

The MP for Leeds West and Pudsey, who is married with two children, was first elected to Parliament in 2010 and became the shadow chancellor in Sir Keir's opposition Cabinet in 2021.

Ms Reeves was born in Lewisham and grew up in south London. She studied PPE at Oxford and has a Master's degree in economics from the LSE.

She has a stint at the Bank of England and four years in private sector banking under her belt.

But she has also faced claims that she embellished her CV to boost her credentials.

Her LinkedIn profile showed she spent six years at the Bank of England rather than a decade as she had previously said, and she was reported to have changed her profile on the networking site to change a job at Halifax Bank of Scotland from 'economist' to 'retail banking', newspapers reported.

She became Britain's first female Chancellor in July against a daunting backdrop of a sluggish economy and competing demands for public spending.

Ms Reeves described her appointment as 'the honour of my life' and a sign for all women and girls that there should be 'no limit to your ambitions'.

She has been unapologetically pro-business, talking up growth as the linchpin of success in government.

She embarked on a so-called 'smoked salmon offensive' of breakfast meetings with leaders of the FTSE 250 in the months before the election and then courted businesses for an international investment summit in October.

But her Budget decision to raise national insurance for employers – after Labour's repeated election pledge not to increase taxes on 'working people' – prompted a major backlash from businesses.

And she is under pressure over her pledge to restore financial stability as growth has failed to match expectations and amid rising government borrowing costs.

In May Sir Keir announced a partial U-turn on plans to means-test winter fuel payments, which will see the benefit paid to pensioners receiving up to £35,000 per year at a cost of around £1.25 billion to the Treasury.

The plan had originally been to set the eligibility ceiling at £13,000. 

Last month she delivered her spending review, which again pumped billions into the NHS, as well as defence spending and nuclear power.

Last year she admitted that a tweet that described her as 'boring, snoring' during a TV appearance left her feeling slightly humiliated.

But the then-shadow treasury secretary, who had been Leeds West MP for three years when BBC Newsnight editor Ian Katz posted the view in 2013, was clear about what her priorities were when asked about it.

'Glamorous and exciting are probably not two things you'd want from someone in charge of public finances – you want someone who's steady, who's serious, who's responsible,' she told The Guardian.

However she has also been involved in a feebies row.

Last August she, the PM, and deputy Angela Rayner stopped accepting clothing donations from a wealthy Labour donor and peer, Lord Alli, and Sir Keir later tweaked the rules on ministers accepting gifts and hospitality.