RECAP: MP claims Rachel Reeves had ‘major row’ with Keir Starmer before crying in the Commons as Tories demand Chancellor clears up ‘personal matter’

In the last few minutes Number 10 and Number 11 have denied claims of an argument betwen Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves

11.59am – Rachel Reeves is seen taking her seat in the Commons ahead of PMQs. Her eyes appear puffy.

An MP behind her taps her on the shoulder – perhaps asking if she is ok – before receiving a reply from the Chancellor.

Ms Reeves then cracks a smile as she talks to Sir Keir Starmer on the Labour front bench.

12.12pm – Ms Reeves responds after Tory leader Kemi Badenoch notes how the Chancellor ‘looks absolutely miserable’.

12.13pm – A tear rolls down Ms Reeves’ face.

It came as Sir Keir failed to provide an answer to Mrs Badenoch’s question about whether the Chancellor would remain in post until the next general election.

12.31pm – Ms Reeves’ bottom lip wobbles and tears roll down both her cheeks as the PM answers a question from Glasgow North MP Martin Rhodes.

12.37pm – The Chancellor leaves the House of Commons chamber after PMQs finishes.

Shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith said refusing to guarantee The Chancellor’s future was ‘the first good decision’ Sir Keir Starmer has made.

Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick said he ‘hoped Rachel Reeves’s personal matter is reolved’ as he criticised Labour’s benefits bill.

He added that ‘working people will pay the price’ for the Welfare bill

Keir Starmer is back working in Downing Street this afternoon as he continues to face questions over Rachel Reeves’ crying in the Commons.

The Prime Minister is hosting the CEO of F1 Stefano Domenicali as well as F1 drivers and apprentices to mark 75 years of F1.

As he welcomed outside No 10, reporters fired questions at him about his Chancellor which he didn’t answer.

Former chancellor Sajid Javid has said he is wishing Rachel Reeves ‘all the very best’ folliowing her tearful appearance in the Commons.

Javid, who served in 11 Downing Street between 2019 and 2020, made the remark on social media.

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.

It prompted claims from Tory leader Kemi Badenoch that she was a ‘human shield’ for the PM’s ‘incompetence’.

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.

by Quentin Letts for The Daily Mail

Rachel Reeves was a picture of melancholy from the moment she entered the chamber for PMQs.

She was almost the last cabinet minister to arrive – it looked briefly as if there would be no room for her. Already her eyes were poached-eggish. ‘Hay fever?’ I wrote in my notebook.

As the 37-minute session unfolded it became increasingly obvious that the affliction was something more serious than a high pollen count. We were subjected to the sight – the extraordinary, troubling, upsetting sight – of a Chancellor in open tears.

Her face was gaunt. She wiped her eyes. Her lower lip crumbled.

She rubbed the tip of her nose with a sleeve and at one point cast her gaze up at the press gallery with its craning, inquisitive scribes. Hers was a look of harrowed anguish.

Read the full piece here:

Body language expert Judi James has analysed frame-by-frame video of the moment Ms Reeves began crying and told MailOnline:

Starmer looks pinned between sneers and tears here.

Sneers from Rayner, who sits upright and almost impassive, performing a rather scathing-looking sideways glance with heavy-lidded eyes, making occasional nods of support for Starmer’s points but seeming to keep herself aloof and slightly distant.

Then poor Reeves’s tears, which do seem to roll openly down her cheeks, with just some head-tossing or twitching to maybe try to blow or knock them away.

She added that Ms Reeves is ‘normally as robotically rigid as her boss’ and ‘tends to sit through PMQs looking primly dressed as she supports Starmer with some mocking smiles and nods’.

Sources have suggested to MailOnline that Rachel Reeves had an argument with Sir Keir Starmer before they entered the Commons.

They added she then broke down when she was privately rebuked by Speaker Lindsay Hoyle for giving long answers during Treasury questions yesterday.

One MP told MailOnline that the cause was a spat with the PM before that clash. ‘There has been a major row before, just before she walked in. I think it was with Keir,’ they said.

No10 refused to comment on claims of a row.

Ms Reeves’ spokesman insisted afterwards that it was a ‘personal matter’ and he would not be ‘getting into’ the reasons. Downing Street said the Chancellor ‘is going nowhere’, had not resigned, and retains Sir Keir’s ‘full backing’.

Bond markets were sent into turmoil and the pound tumbled after the Chancellor’s tears in the Commons – drawing comparisons with the chaotic reaction to Liz Truss’s disastrous mini Budget.

UK ten-year borrowing costs surged close to 4.7 per cent as Sir Keir Starmer refused to offer Rachel Reeves his backing as she sat beside him at Prime Minister’s questions.

The pound fell by one per cent against the dollar to less than $1.36.

Traders are likely to be anxious that even after Ms Reeves’ dismal stewardship of the economy, any Labour replacement could bring more uncertainty to the public finances.

The spike took yields on ten-year government bonds – effectively the rate investors charge to lend to the government – to the highest level in nearly a month.

And the one-day movement was the worst since October 2022, after the Truss mini-Budget.

MailOnline’s Political Correspondent Greg Heffer has a reconstruction of the extraordinary moment Rachel Reeves began to cry on the Commons frontbench.

Here’s how it all unfolded:

Rachel Reeves is seen taking her seat in the Commons ahead of PMQs. Her eyes appear puffy. An MP behind her taps her on the shoulder – perhaps asking if she is ok – before receiving a reply from the Chancellor. Ms Reeves then cracks a smile as she talks to Sir Keir Starmer on the Labour front bench.

Ms Reeves responds after Tory leader Kemi Badenoch notes how the Chancellor ‘looks absolutely miserable’.

A tear rolls down Ms Reeves’ face. It came as Sir Keir failed to provide an answer to Mrs Badenoch’s question about whether the Chancellor would remain in post until the next general election.

Ms Reeves’ bottom lip wobbles and tears roll down both her cheeks as the PM answers a question from Glasgow North MP Martin Rhodes.

The Chancellor leaves the House of Commons chamber after PMQs finishes. Ms Reeves’ sister, Ellie Reeves, took her hand in an apparent show of support

Stephen Flynn, the SNP’s leader in Westminster, has put out a message in support of the Chancellor after tears were seen rolling down her face in the Commons.

Writing on social media, Mr Flynn said:

Like almost all MPs I don’t know why the Chancellor was upset in the Chamber today, but I do hope she is okay and back to her duties this afternoon.Seeing another person in distress is always very difficult, and we are wishing her well.

Conservative shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick has claimed Rachel Reeves’ political career is ‘dead’.

While not mentioning her tears in the Commons specifically, Jenrick said the Chancellor’s position was untenable following drastic changes to the Government’s welfare reforms last night.

The Tories have said ‘we need to know what’s going on’ with Rachel Reeves after her spokesman said her emotional appearance at PMQs was related to a personal matter.

Kemi Badenoch’s spokesman said ‘personal matter doesn’t really clear it up’ and ‘you normally tell people what the personal matter is’.

Asked whether politicians should disclose all personal matters in their lives regardless of what they are, he said: ‘That’s an absurd question.’

He added: ‘I’m not going to speculate… I think we should find out what’s going on.’

The House of Commons has just witnessed one of its most incredible – and distressing – sessions of Prime Minister’s Questions. For the entire sitting, Chancellor Rachel Reeves visibly struggled to keep her emotions together, as tears streaked her face.

The Prime Minister was asked to confirm she would remain in post. He refused, and referred to her tenure in office in the past tense.

It’s important to withhold judgment until all the facts are known, but the sight of a Chancellor in tears justs adds to the impression that the government is falling apart.

Following her punchy performance at PMQs, Kemi Badenoch has taken to social media to say Rachel Reeves has been ‘humiliated’ by her boss Sir Keir Starmer.

The Conservative leader noted Reeves looked ‘absolutely miserable’ during her visibly upset appearance in the Commons earlier.

Here’s what the Leader of the Opposition tweeted following the exchange:

As the Chancellor left the Commons after Prime Minister’s Questions her sister and fellow Labour MP, Ellie Reeves, took her hand in an apparent show of support.

Asked about her tears, a spokesman for the Chancellor said:

It’s a personal matter which, as you would expect, we are not going to get into. The Chancellor will be working out of Downing Street this afternoon.

A Labour minister has claimed Rachel Reeves had an ‘altercation’ with Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle before her emotional appearance in the Commons today.

The unnamed politician told reporters the Chancellors had a ‘row’ with Sir Lindsay who is believed to have later apologised. The nature of the apparent altercation was not disclosed.

She had an altercation with Lindsay [Hoyle] just before PMQs. They had a row. I think he ended up apologising to her.

She’s totally fine. I’ve just been to her office and spoken to her and she’s fine. There’s nothing to worry about.

Downing Street has said Rachel Reeves is ‘going nowhere’ despite Sir Keir Starmer declining to give her a public show of support.

Asked why Sir Keir did not confirm in the Commons that he still had faith in Ms Reeves, the Prime Minister’s press secretary told reporters:

He has done so repeatedly. The Chancellor is going nowhere. She has the Prime Minister’s full backing.

He has said it plenty of times, he doesn’t need to repeat it every time the Leader of the Opposition speculates about Labour politicians.

Here is the extraordinary moment a tear rolled down Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ face during PMQs earlier today:

Rachel Reeves was seen in tears during PMQs today as Keir Starmer was battered over his welfare humbling.

The Chancellor was sitting next to Sir Keir as he insisted the smoking ruin of his benefits reforms would still make things better.

In an extraordinary moment, tears appeared to roll down Ms Reeves’ cheek as Kemi Badenoch demanded a guarantee she would stay in No11 – something the premier did not give. She was seen being comforted by her sister Ellie – also a Labour minister – as she left the chamber although Sir Keir did not speak to her.

Hello and welcome to MailOnline’s live coverage following Rachel Reeves’ emotional appearance in Parliament this afternoon.

The Chancellor was visibly upset as tears rolled down her cheek during Prime Minister’s Questions in startling scenes during Prime Minister’s Questions.

Described as looking ‘completely miserable’ by Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, questions have once again been raised about her future following shambolic last-minute changes to the Government’s planned welfare reforms last night.

Stick with our coverage as we bring you the latest developments from inside Westminster.