Sarah Ingham: No. 11 Downing Street is no place for box-ticking and diversity hires

Dr Sarah Ingham is the author of The Military Covenant: its impact on civil-military relations in Britain.

 Is Rachel Reeves a woman?

Mustard-keen on self-promotion, it wasn’t too long ago that the Chancellor boasted about her stellar intellectual achievements almost as often as the equally adenoidal Sir Keir mentioned toolmaker. Junior chess champion! Economist, but not just any old economist, one with a berth in the Bank of England! Writer!

In Women of Westminster: The Women who Changed Politics readers are rapidly reminded of the author’s CV.  Two and a half pages into the paperback edition’s prologue, our Renaissance woman of Westminster states that “in 2010 when I left my job as an economist to become an MP”, a toxic climate was being fuelled in society: she blamed “people’s ability to easily cloak their identity online.”

As the Budget looms and Britain’s economy goes down the toilet, it seems that one person has just as easily cloaked her true identity offline.

Rachel Reeves’ reputation has unravelled faster than Labour’s promises that its 2024 General Election manifesto was “a credible long-term plan” which was “Fully costed, fully funded – built on a rock of fiscal responsibility.”

Just as Labour’s programme for government now looks fanciful, how have the impressive professional attainments that the Chancellor either claimed, or allowed to gain currency, stacked up?

There were no Queen’s Gambit-style chess prizes, the Bank of England job was far from august, she was not an economist at HBOS or anywhere else in 2010 and she was outed by the Financial Times for apparent plagiarism in “The Women Who Made Modern Economics”.

Such is Reeves’ capacity for embellishment, and the job-related fuss she made about being a woman, is it too preposterous to wonder whether her gender claims aren’t also ‘a tad post-truth’? “Me thinks the lady doth protest too much“?

However, more seriously, the Chancellor personifies the corrosive effect of prioritising identity over professional competence.

Remember Labour’s growthy-changey thing?  Growth was the “number one mission” and the Starmer government would “deliver the change” the country needs, as the Chancellor told Nick Robinson’s Political Thinking podcast back in January.  Growth has flat-lined and any change has been for the worse. Next week’s Budget will try and mitigate last year’s disastrous Budget.

But who cares about the jobs-destroying Employers’ National Insurance hike, the food security-destroying Family Farms’ tax, sky-high industry-destroying energy prices, the Winter Fuel Allowance debacle, the eye-watering cost of government borrowing compared to, say, Germany, the national debt, or massive human and capital flight, when we have a woman in No.11?

Why worry about an unprecedented press conference or pitch-rolling, preparing the ground, planting the seed or any other horticultural cliché in connection with a manifesto-breaking income tax hike, when we have the first female Chancellor in 800 years?

Why any nostalgia for the days when Chancellors were sequestered in pre-Budget purdah, which prevented market jitters, mass householder anxiety over possible new property taxes, and criticism from the former, ahem, Chief Economist of the Bank of England Andy Haldane about a “circus” of speculation?

After all, what really, really matters is that the first woman to hold the keys to No.11 is busy ensuring that its artwork is either of, or by, women.

Having repeatedly played the strong woman card, it is somewhat ironic that Reeves held a public self-pity party.  All the brave talk with Nick Robinson of steely determination, making “ruthless choices” and being the Iron Chancellor 2.0 ended in tears in July in the House of Commons.

Incredibly,  the markets seem to believe that the best the government has got is this buckling Chancellor, who is so chaotic she can’t even manage her own household admin, shown by the avoidable landlord licence mess.

When reality collided with the Reeves’ resumé, the Chancellor acquired a new moniker. Since then, Rachel “from accounts” should be demoted to the stationery cupboard.

The Chancellor is the poster person for the perils of diversity hires – staff who are chosen because of their identity rather than their skillset.  No.11 should be no place for human resources’ box-ticking or for ministers who are completely out of their depth and/or view their job as a personal vanity project.

Reeves embodies Labour’s fixation with identity. It was also seen at David Lammy’s lamentable PMQs performance, when Connor Rand  MP – presumably no relation whatsoever to Ayn – congratulated the Deputy PM “for being the first black person to ever answer Prime Minister’s Questions.”

For the past decade, identity has been cemented into society thanks in part to workplace policies linked to DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion).  Today, Trump’s corporate America is rowing back from the identity/DEI agenda. It remains an article of faith, however, for the British public sector – from which all senior Labour MPs spring.

Last Sunday, grassroots movement #Together gathered for its fourth anniversary. Speakers included Allison Pearson and Lord (Tony) Sewell. Blue Labour’s Lord (Maurice) Glasman called for “solidarity over diversity”.

Immediately after Chancellor Reeves presents her Budget next week, Kemi Badenoch will answer.

The Conservative record on promoting women and people from ethnic minorities speaks for itself: there is no need to brag. Instead, the Opposition Leader can remain focused on the country’s number one priority – the economy.