Labour shadow chancellor juggles being working mum with ‘chocolate and pink wine’

At 14, Rachel Reeves was a national chess champion – so it is not surprising she has said she can be “a bit of a tiger mum” when it comes to her two children.

But after she confesses to me she lets them win, I ask if she is going soft. “I know,” she laughs. “It’s wrong but I’ve succumbed. Actually, I’ve even let my daughter give up chess club at school. But I can still be quite pushy.”

On Sunday afternoons, the Shadow Chancellor – now looking forward to a winning endgame against the Tories in the looming general election – gets the board out with her daughter, 11, and son, eight, as they wait hungrily for the roast she prepares each week.

“I even cooked one last Sunday when it was really hot,” says Rachel, who is particularly proud of the cauliflower cheese and Yorkshire puds she makes. It’s something I do try to find the time for because I think it’s important, especially with a young family.”

Rachel, 45, and husband Nick Joicey, a senior civil servant, both work full-time, so they are well aware of the childcare struggles many parents face.

I try to take my kids to school a couple of times a week. When I get home on time, I do bedtime stories with my youngest,” she says. “Obviously, we have childcare as we can’t pick up our kids from school. But also I’m very lucky I live near my parents and they help out a lot.”

She is determined to ensure all mums get the support they need so they can work if they want to. “I know how difficult getting the right childcare is,” she says. “The Government put more money in but they over-promised and are now under-delivering.

“We need to make sure promises we made to parents are honoured because it’s really important – not only in terms of ensuring kids get a good start in life but about the economy as well. If parents aren’t working because they can’t find childcare or they can’t afford it, that’s a huge hit to the economy. And at the moment in the UK we’ve got 22.1% of adults aged 16 to 64 not working or not seeking work, and some of those will be parents who are not able to work because they can’t find a way of balancing work and family life. We’ve got to improve that.”

We meet at an Iceland supermarket in her Leeds West constituency, where she tells staff she believes she can make families better off by ending the economic chaos seen under the Tories.

“I’ve made that commitment to never play fast and loose with public finances,” she tells me afterwards.

“If you’re a family who’s seen your mortgage go through the roof – or your rent because your landlord has passed on the higher mortgage costs – actually that stability will make you better off.”

She is scathing about Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt, who she accuses of “going around saying the cost-of-living crisis is over, we’ve turned a corner”, saying: “The Chancellor said look out for the ‘feelgood factor’. I think it is so out of touch. People say, ‘That’s not my experience, that’s not the experience of my friends and neighbours’.”

As well as winning back the voters’ trust, one of her big successes has been convincing business leaders to publicly endorse Labour’s plans.

But she laughs when I tell her the Economist magazine this week wrote it is easier to get hold of tickets to Taylor Swift’s opening night at Wembley next month than to attend one of Labour’s business days as they are so in demand. “I’m going to go home to my daughter and say, ‘Would you rather go to Taylor Swift or a business breakfast with me?’” she says.

Since being appointed Shadow Chancellor by Labour leader Keir Starmer three years ago this month, one of the members of the Shadow Cabinet she has become noticeably close to is deputy party leader Angela Rayner. “She’s become like a genuine, really good friend,” she says as she blasts the Tories for trying to create a row over whether Angela should have paid capital gains tax when she sold the council home she bought as a young mum. “The way they’ve treated her is really awful,” says Rachel.

“But when I talk to friends or I’m out campaigning, I think a lot of people see the bullying of Angela, a working class woman who’s risen up. I’m not sure people not made of such strong stuff could tolerate the sort of abuse she gets. I hugely admire her.”

Beyond concerns on the sometimes toxic nature of Westminster, Rachel is worried about children’s use of social media and smartphones. She says: “My daughter will be going to secondary school next year. We have resisted [giving her a mobile] so far but under pressure. I do worry that when we relent it will be about what apps she has. As a mum, it worries me.”

She says she thinks tech firms should do more to tackle inappropriate content, adding: “One of the things that really contributes to anxiety for young people growing up today is social media.

“I used to read teenage girls’ magazines and you’d think, ‘Goodness, they were all beautiful and lived these great lives’. But now it’s that constant access to social media and judging yourself against often impossible images. I worry about people growing up today and the pressure they’re under compared with my generation.”

I’m welcoming Natalie Elphicke despite our spat

When Natalie Elphicke said Marcus Rashford should have “spent more time perfecting his game and less time playing politics” after missing a penalty in the Euro 2020 final, Rachel Reeves had an uncompromising response. “F**k off,” she instructed the then Tory MP.

But she insists she welcomes Mrs Elphicke’s surprise defection to Labour. “It’s fine,” she says when asked if it’s a bit awkward. “I said that because I disapproved of what she said about Marcus Rashford. She’s apologised for what she said, so she recognises that what she said wasn’t right.

“But I welcome her to the Labour benches. Like many people who voted Conservative at the last election and in some cases like Natalie have voted Conservative all their life, they see the Conservative Party today and don’t like what it’s become. They want change.”

Pushed on whether they’ve spent any time together since her defection, she admits: “No, I haven’t yet.”

Not confident yet on assisted dying

Despite her mum being in favour of assisted dying, the Shadow Chancellor says she is unsure whether she would support a change in the law.

Asked if she knows which way she would go if there was a vote in the Commons, Ms Reeves says: “No, I don’t actually. My mum’s parents both died of dementia and the last few years of their lives were just awful really. They weren’t living and my mum, I think, would feel very strongly [for] assisted dying to avoid that. But obviously people have also got to be competent to make that decision.

“I do worry that people will feel under pressure, that ‘Oh no, I’m no good to anybody any more’. So I think you’d have to get that balance right.” She adds: “I would need to properly understand that and be confident of that before I could vote for assisted dying.”