Conservative peer Baroness Karren Brady has told Sky News she feels “nothing but sympathy” for the chancellor, after Rachel Reeves was seen crying in the House of Commons during Prime Minister’s Questions.
Ms Reeves was seen visibly crying in the chamber the morning after her government was forced into another U-turn on welfare reform by Labour backbenchers, all but wiping out any savings in spending she was hoping to achieve.
The Prime Minister failed to back his chancellor until after PMQs, leading markets to question her future.
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The Apprentice star warned: “She will be labelled ‘weak’ because it’s a woman crying, the first woman chancellor, and I think that’s a very dangerous thing.”
The aide to Lord Sugar, who was elevated to the upper chamber in 2014 by David Cameron, agreed with Kemi Badenoch’s statement that “the leader of the opposition called her ‘a shield’, which the Prime Minister is hiding behind and there’s probably a bit of truth in that as well.”
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Baroness Brady, who has previously been critical of negative economic sentiment from the Labour government and tax hikes on business, said Ms Reeves is “a strong, diligent person doing her job to the best of her ability under incredibly difficult circumstances”.
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Earlier this year she told a newspaper that Reeves’ hikes in business taxes “lacks an understanding of how businesses operate” and that last year’s rise in employers’ national insurance was a “mis-step”.
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However, speaking at an event in the City of London, Baroness Brady expressed sympathy with the chancellor saying: “Many people cry at work, most of them can go and hide in the toilet and not be seen.
“Being emotional is largely in part because you care very much about what you’re doing and how you’re doing it.”
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However, she did maintain her differences of opinion on the administration’s approach to the economy, but stated: “She’s made some pledges, that through no fault of her own, she may not be able to deliver because the floor has changed from underneath her.”
Aged 23, Baroness Brady was appointed as managing director of Birmingham City FC in 1993, and in 1997 became the youngest managing director of a UK plc, when the club floated on the London Stock Exchange.
