Keir Starmer’s mini reshuffle has sidelined Rachel Reeves just as the markets need a show of faith, writes Helen Thomas

It only took one year, two fiscal events, three per cent plus inflation, four chiefs of staff, five directors of communication and long end gilt yields at a 27-year high for the Prime Minister to decide he should have a chief economic adviser. A man who is happiest hugging fellow leaders at global summits has decided to take back control of the economy, or at least no longer devolve this apparently exogenous topic to his Downing Street neighbour. It is a big gamble. Starmer is reshuffling the pack with an untested team and sidelining his Chancellor at precisely the moment the markets are questioning the credibility of the government’s plans. Get it wrong and he will be the one that ends up shuffled aside.

As such, the new names on the economic roster can be thought of as a kind of Praetorian Guard, an attempt to shield the Prime Minister from the fatal body blows wrought by financial markets on ill-equipped leaders. Starmer has poached Reeves’ second-in-command, Darren Jones, to become “chief secretary to the Prime Minister” – an entirely new ministerial role which the........

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