Is Britain’s Rachel Reeves the new Hillary Clinton?

Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves, the second most powerful politician in the country, shed a few tears from the front row of the government benches in the House of Commons during the weekly Prime Minister’s Questions session. Her boss Prime Minister Keir Starmer – to her mounting horror – pointedly refused to confirm whether she’d be staying in her current post.

“We’ve got free school meals, breakfast clubs, we’ve got £15 billion invested in transport funds in the North and the Midlands. We’re cutting regulation, planning and infrastructure is pounding forward,” Starmer said with affected bolshiness. As he wandered further and further away from the opposition’s question about whether his embattled Chancellor would be keeping her job, Reeves could only look plaintively on.

Reeves’s display reminds Cockburn of a similar moment across the pond from one Hillary Clinton during her first run for the presidency in 2008. The former New York Senator described the difficult campaign she felt she had led: “It’s not easy, and I couldn’t do it if I didn’t passionately believe it was the right thing to do. I have so many opportunities for this country; I just don’t want to see us fall backwards.” Here, Clinton took a moment to pause, put a hand under her chin and waited for her welling emotions to subside.

Clinton then added that her bid for the presidency was “not just political,” and it was “not just public.” No, “This is very personal for me,” she said.

It seems to be very personal to Reeves as well – Reeves appeared to be holding her sister Ellie’s (also a Member of Parliament) hand for support as the pair beat a retreat from the Commons chamber, as the Independent reported. The American public, of course, eventually wearied of how Mrs. Clinton so regularly elided politics with her own personal hang-ups – something Reeves may learn the hard way across the pond.