Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ unbelievable hidden expertise that helped launch her profession

As well as being the first woman to ever hold the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves also has a hidden talent from childhood.

The 45-year-old senior politician, who has been MP for the people of Leeds West and Pudsey since 2010, showed her propensity for maths from a very young age, after being born to primary school teachers Graham and Sally in 1979.

She has credited her rare talent to her dad, who taught her how to play chess at the age of seven. By the time she hit her teenage years, Rachel was the Under-14s British girls chess champion, beating fearsome opponents with aplomb.

And she still plays chess now, praising the game for the life lessons it imparts. “It’s about getting you to look ahead; to think strategically and not just tactically,” she told the BBC in 2021, “and to think about what your opponent’s next move is going to be as well as your own.”

She even challenged the late UKIP and Tory donor Stuart Wheeler to a game after his sexist comments claiming women are “nowhere near as good as men” at games like chess, bridge and poker. While he never took her up on her offer, he never uttered the comment again.

With her junior chess championship under her belt, Rachel became just the third pupil from her state school to win a place at Oxford when she was 18. She studied PPE – Politics, Philosophy and Economics – for three years there before going on to achieve a Masters at the London School for Economics.

Now with two children of her own – daughter Anna, who was born in 2013, and son Harold who arrived in 2015 – Rachel jokes that she can be “a bit of a tiger mum” when it comes to pushing her kids – although she does let them win the occasional game of chess.

“It’s wrong but I’ve succumbed,” she told the Mirror earlier this year. “Actually, I’ve even let my daughter give up chess club at school. But I can still be quite pushy.”

She, the children and her husband Nick Joicey, a senior civil servant and former speechwriter for Gordon Brown, get out the chessboard on Sunday afternoons while they’re waiting for their roast to cook. “It’s something I do try to find the time for because I think it’s important, especially with a young family,” she said.

Rachel was the first woman to welcome a baby while holding a post in the Shadow Cabinet, and has previously spoken about the pressure she felt returning to work just five months after Anna’s arrival.

“I had a busy workload and a lot of pressure. Five months after my first baby was born, I came back to work, and although balancing the two was a challenge, I loved my job and had a supportive husband and family,” she wrote for MMB Magazine.

“I travelled regularly between Leeds and London, and both of my children are good travellers who love Leeds and London.”

While the July 2024 election brought in the highest-ever number of female MPs – 263, or 40% of the total – Rachel has previously spoken about the need to reform the House of Commons to help support working mothers. “Forty years ago, when I was born, there were only 19 [female Members of Parliament]. So we’ve seen a huge change,” she wrote at the time. “But more needs to be done to get women in to Parliament and to support parents in all jobs to be able to balance work and a happy family life too.”

Now, with Anna starting at secondary school this year and Harold still in primary, the chancellor has even more to juggle with her stressful job.

“I try to take my kids to school a couple of times a week,” she told the Mirror in May. “When I get home on time, I do bedtime stories with my youngest. 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.”