The reality is that everybody polishes their CV – online or otherwise – to make them look like a cross between Elon Musk and Usain Bolt. Every so often, it can catch you out. And that’s the position Rachel Thieves finds herself in today.
And it’s serious. So serious that a journalist asked the following killer question of Keir Starmer’s PR people at No.10: ‘’Is lying on your CV a breach of the Ministerial code?’’
Downing Street refused to be drawn on the question. But my bet is that like Starmer’s free suits, the issue will not go away. Not least of all because she was elected as MP for Leeds West at the time when her LinkedIn profile proudly proclaimed she was an economist with the Halifax Bank of Scotland.
If you were a voter in her constituency, I would have been impressed that my Labour candidate wasn’t another numpty who had either been a local councillor or even worse a trade union official, neither of whom would have known the first thing about commercial life.
No, our Rachel believed in capitalism. She will have safe hands in any crisis. But the truth is that she was being massively economical with the truth. Yes, she was an economist, and yes, she worked for HBOS, but it seems her work had nothing whatsoever to do with the bank’s numbers.
The excellent political blogger Guido Fawkes claims she held a mid-ranking position in a small support department, covering admin and IT matters. It appears she dealt with complaints.
So, for 14 years, no one noticed the questionable job description. Then she dumped the worst Budget in history on an unsuspecting British public, which in turn led to the inevitable investigation into her background. And, at that point, she was found wanting. A Socialist politician appearing to obscure the truth. How unusual.
Something had to be done. She could have held a press conference, she could have issued a statement, she could have given an interview. She chose none of those options. What she did was go on her LinkedIn and made few subtle changes.
Out went the headline economist, with a subdeck Bank of Scotland-fulltime. In came the headline retail banking and the subdeck Halifax-fulltime. That’s a pretty big change when you have given the impression for more than a decade that you were helping to run a bank when the more likely reality was that you were counting the paper clips.
I suspect that Reeves got most of her advice on how to cover up past errors from Sir Keir Starmer.
As you may remember I have been trying to get to the bottom of what role, if any, he played as head of the Crown Prosecution Service when it was decided not to prosecute Harrods owner Mohammed Fayed after a 15-year-old came forward and made allegations that he sexually molested her.
Starmer said the decision not to prosecute had nothing to do with him, claiming the case had not ‘’crossed his desk". I find that hard to believe as Fayed at the time was just about the most famous person in England as not only did he own Harrods but was accusing the Royal Family of being complicit in the death of Diana and his son Dodi.
So I used Freedom of Information to discover who the lawyers were dealing with the case. The CPS rejected the first try, saying that to name them would be an invasion of privacy of some kind.
I then pointed out that as he was now the PM and had acknowledged the case had come before the CPS when he was the boss, he had already breached his own privacy.
Anyway, I have just heard from them. And this was their response: The CPS does not hold any information within the scope of your request.
So, they are shutting the door. They are saying that they don’t keep the names of lawyers who deal with specific cases. That I find hard to believe. In the legal world, everything is cc’d.
I will battle on and one day will get to the bottom of this. After all, it took 14 years to find out Reeves may have been telling whoppers.
Find Out More...
And it’s serious. So serious that a journalist asked the following killer question of Keir Starmer’s PR people at No.10: ‘’Is lying on your CV a breach of the Ministerial code?’’
Downing Street refused to be drawn on the question. But my bet is that like Starmer’s free suits, the issue will not go away. Not least of all because she was elected as MP for Leeds West at the time when her LinkedIn profile proudly proclaimed she was an economist with the Halifax Bank of Scotland.
If you were a voter in her constituency, I would have been impressed that my Labour candidate wasn’t another numpty who had either been a local councillor or even worse a trade union official, neither of whom would have known the first thing about commercial life.
No, our Rachel believed in capitalism. She will have safe hands in any crisis. But the truth is that she was being massively economical with the truth. Yes, she was an economist, and yes, she worked for HBOS, but it seems her work had nothing whatsoever to do with the bank’s numbers.
The excellent political blogger Guido Fawkes claims she held a mid-ranking position in a small support department, covering admin and IT matters. It appears she dealt with complaints.
So, for 14 years, no one noticed the questionable job description. Then she dumped the worst Budget in history on an unsuspecting British public, which in turn led to the inevitable investigation into her background. And, at that point, she was found wanting. A Socialist politician appearing to obscure the truth. How unusual.
Something had to be done. She could have held a press conference, she could have issued a statement, she could have given an interview. She chose none of those options. What she did was go on her LinkedIn and made few subtle changes.
Out went the headline economist, with a subdeck Bank of Scotland-fulltime. In came the headline retail banking and the subdeck Halifax-fulltime. That’s a pretty big change when you have given the impression for more than a decade that you were helping to run a bank when the more likely reality was that you were counting the paper clips.
I suspect that Reeves got most of her advice on how to cover up past errors from Sir Keir Starmer.
As you may remember I have been trying to get to the bottom of what role, if any, he played as head of the Crown Prosecution Service when it was decided not to prosecute Harrods owner Mohammed Fayed after a 15-year-old came forward and made allegations that he sexually molested her.
Starmer said the decision not to prosecute had nothing to do with him, claiming the case had not ‘’crossed his desk". I find that hard to believe as Fayed at the time was just about the most famous person in England as not only did he own Harrods but was accusing the Royal Family of being complicit in the death of Diana and his son Dodi.
So I used Freedom of Information to discover who the lawyers were dealing with the case. The CPS rejected the first try, saying that to name them would be an invasion of privacy of some kind.
I then pointed out that as he was now the PM and had acknowledged the case had come before the CPS when he was the boss, he had already breached his own privacy.
Anyway, I have just heard from them. And this was their response: The CPS does not hold any information within the scope of your request.
So, they are shutting the door. They are saying that they don’t keep the names of lawyers who deal with specific cases. That I find hard to believe. In the legal world, everything is cc’d.
I will battle on and one day will get to the bottom of this. After all, it took 14 years to find out Reeves may have been telling whoppers.
Find Out More...