From HBOS Complaints Desk to Chancellor: The Curious Case of Rachel from Accounts

From Bank Complaints to Budget Cuts: The Curious Case of Rachel from Accounts

When Labour promised us an economic mastermind as Chancellor, who knew we’d end up with someone who couldn’t master her own expenses? The revelation that Rachel Reeves—our supposed financial wizard—may have been more familiar with the complaints department than the economics floor at HBOS adds a particularly rich irony to Britain’s current economic malaise.

Let’s begin with the CV sleight-of-hand. Reeves claimed to be an economist at HBOS, a credential that helped burnish her image as Labour’s financial genius-in-waiting. Reality, as it often does, tells a different tale. She was, in fact, a complaints manager—a role about as close to being an economist as I am to being an astronaut. When confronted, the LinkedIn profile was quietly updated, like a teenager caught padding their first job application.

But it’s the expenses saga that truly illuminates the character of our current Chancellor. While HBOS teetered on the brink of collapse—eventually requiring £20.5 billion of taxpayers’ money to stay afloat—internal documents suggest Reeves and two other managers were busy turning the company credit card into their personal shopping account. Handbags, perfume, earrings, wine—all allegedly charged to a bank that would soon be begging for public bailouts.

Reeves bought birthday presents for colleagues with HBOS’s money throughout her time in Customer Relations, receipts show, with purchases including wine and cosmetics. Some were bought using a Motivation card, while others were reimbursed through an expenses claim.

She also spent £152 on a handbag and perfume as a present for her boss using the bank’s money, according to the whistleblower’s report. The present was a joint gift from Reeves and one of the other managers who was later investigated alongside her.

And she bought earrings as a present for her PA, which she claimed back on expenses.

Her PA, Linda Barrowclough, said she had received Christmas and birthday gifts from Reeves but had assumed they were “personal gifts [and] they’d have come out of her own pocket”.

Reeves also used her Motivation card to spend more than £400 on a leaving meal for a colleague, which the whistleblowing complaint claimed was not a permitted use.

The whistleblower’s six-page complaint reads like a shopping list of corporate excess: hundreds spent on gifts, taxi rides, and Christmas parties while the financial sector crumbled around them. Internal Audit apparently found evidence of wrongdoing, yet mysteriously, the investigation seems to have evaporated into thin air just as Reeves departed for greener political pastures.

Her team’s defence—that she “left on good terms” and “received a severance payment”—rather misses the point. Many architects of financial disaster left their institutions with golden handshakes and glowing references. That’s rather the problem, isn’t it?

Fast forward to 2015, and we find MP Reeves having her parliamentary credit card suspended over £4,000 of unexplained expenses. Old habits, as they say, die hard.

Now this same person presides over Britain’s economy, delivering budgets that attack the elderly and disabled while the country flatlines. The irony would be delicious if it weren’t so bitter.

Labour promised us an economist but delivered someone who allegedly couldn’t follow basic expenses rules. They offered financial expertise but gave us someone who apparently needed reminding that company credit cards aren’t for birthday shopping sprees. When the whistleblower’s report spoke of managers using bank money to “fund a lifestyle,” who could have guessed one of those managers would end up controlling the nation’s purse strings?

Keir Starmer insists the Chancellor has “integrity.” Perhaps he should ask the former HBOS employees who remember her—particularly those in the expenses department—if they agree.

The British public deserves better than this bait-and-switch. We were promised a financial expert and got Rachel from Accounts—and not, it seems, a particularly diligent one at that. As the economy stagnates and working people suffer, you just can’t help but wonder: is this really the best Labour could do?

In the end, it’s not just about incorrect job titles or questionable expenses—it’s about trust. If Reeves couldn’t be straight about her past, why should we trust her with our future?

Paul Knaggs