Rachel Reeves has been accused of exaggerating the length of her service working at the Bank of England.
In an interview from Stylist magazine in 2021, the Chancellor said she had spent a decade working as an economist at the Bank of England (BoE) and “loved it”.
After the interview she said in a social media post: “A real pleasure to speak to @StylistMagazine about my time as an economist at the Bank of England.”
However, Ms Reeves’s own LinkedIn page lists only a six-year period of service at the Bank from September 2000 to December 2006.
According to her LinkedIn profile, during her time at the BoE she worked in the international economic analysis division, then, at the British Embassy Washington as Second Secretary of the economic division and later in the structural economic analysis division.
It comes after Ms Reeves was accused of being dishonest about her work at the Bank of Scotland. This week the Chancellor’s LinkedIn page was edited to change her job title at the bank from “Economist” to “Retail Banking”.
‘Economical with the truth’
Conservatives have said she has been “economical with the truth”.
Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, has called the claim “another brazen lie from Rachel Reeves”.
He told The Telegraph: “Rachel Reeves has proven herself to be a compulsive liar. During the election campaign she lied through her teeth about not raising taxes on working people. Now she’s been exposed brazenly lying about her CV, which would be curtains for most people. It’s one rule for her, another for everyone else.”
One of the six years the Chancellor spent at the BoE was for a year-long masters course at the London School of Economics. Henry Newman, a former advisor to Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, said: “Her own LinkedIn shows Reeves spent six years at Bank of which one was spent studying – so not working as an economist.”
An online archive shows that in 2009, when Ms Reeves’ was campaigning to be an MP, her website said: “Rachel has spent her professional career as an economist working for the Bank of England, the British Embassy in Washington and at Halifax Bank of Scotland.”
A Labour source said: “The Chancellor won’t take any lectures on honesty from a man whose scandals went too far for even Boris Johnson to stand by him.
“The British public voted for change with Labour this summer, and after Robert Jenrick’s performance you can see why.”
The Chancellor was approached for comment.