In a recent turn-of-events Rachel Reeves made changes to her professional background information changing how she describes her pre-politics career experience. The Shadow Chancellor adjusted her LinkedIn profile removing mentions of economist position at Bank of Scotland replacing it with retail-banking role at Halifax (which is actually part of the same company since early 2000s)
The timing is interesting as just last month political website Guido Fawkes published info about her actual role at the bank: suggesting she worked in complaints department doing day-to-day tasks instead of economic analysis. At her Mansion House talk this month she used different wording too - mentioning financial services instead of economics
Before entering politics‚ I worked as an economist at the Bank of England and then in financial services
Her work history shows she moved from Bank of England (where she worked about 15 years ago) straight to Halifax staying there till late-2009. Sources familiar with situation say her job included:
- IT-related tasks
- Admin work
- Complaint handling projects
Treasury team explains that her retail-banking work used her economics background but opposition doesnt agree. Robert Jenrick shadow justice secretary wrote on X: “Reeves said she was an economist; turns out shes just economical with the truth“ Conservative party members point to this as example of whats wrong with her tax promises too