If you have only been in Westminster for the last five years then it is understandable why you might have been conditioned to expect the Chancellor to resign on Wednesday. Theo Bertram takes stock, reminding us that Chancellors have a history of enduring through the barbs, the polls, and bad headlines.
At the start of this week, there was frenzied speculation that Rachel Reeves was on the brink of resignation. ‘To go or not to go, that is now the question,’ said Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride in a Shakespearean address in the Commons. For anyone who has observed British politics for more than a decade, this giddiness is obviously misplaced. But if you have only been in Westminster for the last five years – as is the case for the majority of MPs – then it is understandable why you might have been conditioned to expect the Chancellor to resign on Wednesday.
There were six Chancellors of the Exchequer between 2019 and 2022: one every 196.5 days. At that rate, Reeves should have gone on January 15th, shortly before midday. People seem to have got used to the idea that a Chancellor only gets one Budget, two at best, before they expire. Or in the case of poor Sajid Javid, none.
But until recently, the pattern was for Chancellors to endure. Between Geoffrey Howe’s arrival in 1979 and George Osborne’s departure in 2016, we had eight Chancellors, with a new one every four and a half years. If Reeves does averagely well or a Chancellor in normal times, that gives her until August 27, 2028.
It is worth remembering why Chancellors resign, to understand the when. There are only five reasons why Chancellors have prematurely left No11 in the last five decades and we can measure Reeves’ likelihood of leaving against each of them.
- They become PM – John Major in 1990 and Gordon Brown in 2007 stopped being Chancellor because they became Prime Minister. Is Reeves angling for the top job? No.
- Ideological difference with the boss – Geoffrey Howe spectacularly resigned in 1990 and sunk the knife into Margaret Thatcher after disagreeing on Europe and the economy. Kwasi Kwarteng was fired by Liz Truss for telling her to slow down. Does Reeves have an ideological economic difference with Starmer? Not a jot.
- Government majority collapses – Philip Hammond did not survive Theresa May’s disastrous election campaign in 2019. With a 163 seat majority, Reeves is far from at risk.
- Fight with No10 advisers – Nigel Lawson eventually resigned when Margaret Thatcher’s economic adviser kept briefing against him, and Sajid Javid quit after fighting with Dominic Cummings, who had sacked one of his advisers. Is Reeves currently squaring up to No10 advisers? There’s no sign of that right now.
- Mutiny – Rishi Sunak’s resignation mortally wounded Prime Minister Boris Johnson in July 2022. Is Reeves about to do over Starmer? No, there is no sign of mutiny in the current Starmer Cabinet, least of all in No11.
The most boringly common way that Chancellors leave No11 is that they stay until the bitter end. Ken Clarke, Alistair Darling and Jeremy Hunt all served their full sentences. There are up to 18 quarters to go before Labour has to call an election. Reeves still has time on her side.
More than anything we should take note of the reason Chancellors do not leave. Since 1979, none have lost their jobs for failing to get growth or, even for plunging the economy into recession as Norman Lamont did on Black Wednesday in 1992. Chancellors do not have to quit every time some underwhelming data is published – otherwise, we would have burned through them at an even faster rate than the last Conservative government.
Chancellors simply do not resign because the opposition would really like them to. Nor because the opinion polls are bad. The lesson of history is that those in No11 only really need to worry about the opinions of the people in No10. All the rest – the opinion polls, bad headlines, and even the Shakespearean barbs in the Commons – is just noise, ‘full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.’
