Chancellor in tears during PMQs
Coffee House Shots
The Spectator
4.4 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 2 July 2025
⏱️ 12 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
There were extraordinary scenes in PMQs today. Rachel Reeves appeared distraught as the Prime Minister failed to guarantee her security when asked by leader of the opposition Kemi Badenoch. It was brutal to watch, as the iron chancellor’s lip quivered and a tear rolled down her cheek. In many ways, you can’t blame her – with her headroom narrowing, she will be forced to find a further £5 billion worth of savings to allow for the government’s botched welfare bill.
No. 10 has since clarified that Rachel Reeves has not resigned and will not be sacked, stressing that it was ‘personal’ matter that had upset her, ‘which - as you would expect - we are not going to get into. The chancellor will be working out of Downing Street this afternoon’. There is still no clarification on whether that refers to issues in her personal life or her job security. The question remains: is she on borrowed time?
James Heale speaks to Michael Simmons and Isabel Hardman.
Produced by Oscar Edmondson and Megan McElroy.
Transcript
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| 0:38.7 | involves risk. Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots. I'm James Hill and I'm joined today |
| 0:46.8 | by Isabel Harbman and Michael Simmons. Now, most extraordinary scenes happen to say to prime |
| 0:51.5 | Mrs's questions. Isabel, you'd probably agree that it was the most remarkable session of PMQs you've had since the general election. |
| 0:57.8 | Talk us through what happened today and why everyone is talking about neither of the two people who really spoke, |
| 1:02.1 | Kirstama and Kew and Baderkeye and Lek, but actually the woman next to Kirstama, which was Rachel Reeves. |
| 1:06.1 | Yeah, I mean, not just remarkable since the general election. I'd say remarkable probably over the past kind of |
| 1:12.4 | few electoral cycles, actually. PMQ's has been pretty formulae for quite a while. And today, |
| 1:20.2 | Kirstarmer was totally brutal, but not towards the opposition, towards his own most senior colleague, |
| 1:27.0 | Rachel Reeves, who then appeared |
| 1:28.4 | to be crying while he was refusing to guarantee her survival until the end of this Parliament, |
| 1:35.4 | which was unexpected. She'd obviously had a, you know, bruising few weeks, particularly |
| 1:41.7 | bruising last 24 hours in the U-turns that have happened in the |
| 1:46.4 | welfare bill, and also the way in which colleagues have been laying the blame for the mess |
| 1:52.2 | over that legislation at her feet and saying that she is toast. But I don't think people |
| 1:57.3 | expected her to be in such an emotional state in the chamber as we saw. |
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