Queen's sham-bit: Rachel Reeves's claim to be a junior chess champ under fire
Rachel Reeves’ claim to have been a junior chess champion has been placed under scrutiny.
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She said in an interview in 2023 that she was the British U-14 girls champion, and the claim has appeared in profiles of the Labour MP since at least 2011.
However, a professor of finance who represented England and Britain at chess has accused her of overstating her claim.
Professor Alex Edmans, who competed a year below Ms Reeves, pointed to records of the 1993 British Championship showing that an Emily Howard was the girls' champion.
Read more: Was Rachel Reeves really an under-14 chess champion? We examine the claim
That year, Ms Reeves won a separate, girls-only tournament, the British Women's Chess Association (BWCA) Girls Championship.
Prof Edelman said this win did not entitle her to call herself the 'British Girls U-14 champion'.
He told LBC: “Rachel’s claim was… I was the British Girls’ under-14 champion.
“Emily Howard won that championship so she’s not the British Girls’ champion.
“She did share the title of a quite different championship, the British Women's Chess Association Championship.
“That does not confer the title of British champion.
“I could run a marathon in London… but I did not run the London Marathon.
“This is not just a semantic difference, this is a quite different competition.
“Nobody should resign based on something they did or did not say about chess. Now it does seem to be a pattern of behaviour [for the Chancellor].
“I think it’s great she played chess but if somebody else won the title, don’t claim you won the title.
“What is objective is who won that title, and it was not her.”
He told the Times: “It is clearly defined as the girl who does best in the (mixed gender) British Championship.
“She may well have won titles, but the title of British girls' champion is a specific event.”
In 2023, the then shadow chancellor told the Guardian: “I am – I was – a geek. I played chess. I was the British girls under-14 champion.”
And the claim also appears in a profile of the then 32-year-old shadow chief secretary to the Treasury in 2011 in the same newspaper.
Malcolm Pein, International Master, Executive Editor Chess Magazine, founder of the London Chess Centre and Director of International Chess for the English Chess Federation said: "The BWCA competition was in my view the only credible girls championship, as it was for girls only, as opposed to being subsumed into the Open British U14 Championships where 90% or so of the players were boys, as was the rather discriminatory practice of the British Chess Federation 30 years ago."
The Chancellor has previously faced questions about the accuracy of some of her other personal and professional details.
The accuracy of her profile on the business social media site LinkedIn was also called into question in February.
She is currently facing questions about the accuracy of claims made by the Treasury about the state of the economy before the Budget.
Senior officials from the Office for Budget Responsibility watchdog said they had to 'set the record straight' on the forecasts the Chancellor had been given after 'unhelpful' information appeared in the media.