Fiscal hawk or playing a bad hand: what kind of chancellor is Rachel Reeves?

The past few weeks at Westminster have been dominated by Rachel Reeves’ decision to press for £5bn of welfare cuts. Photograph: Jeff Overs/PA

As Rachel Reeves hosted a charity breakfast in the grand state room at No 11 Downing Street last week, she stood beneath an 18th-century portrait of a politically powerful woman from another era: Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough.

Part of Reeves’s feminist rehang, the painting of Queen Anne’s confident right-hand woman, resplendent in velvet, underlined how visibly different the Treasury now looks under the leadership of the first female chancellor.