As an opening gambit at PMQs, Kemi Badenoch attacked Labour’s knight, the prime minister, over his Treasury queen, Rachel Reeves.
“We now know the black hole was fake, the chancellor’s book was fake, her CV was fake – even her chess claims are made up,” said the Tory leader.
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“She doesn’t belong in the Treasury; she belongs in la-la land.”
Chess claims made up? Where did that attacking move from Kemi come from? Hasn’t the chancellor told us for years that she was a national chess champion in 1993?
Indeed she has. “I am – I was – a geek. I played chess. I was the British girls’ under-14 champion,” she declared proudly in a 2023 interview with The Guardian.
She posted a video showing her playing chess in parliament and before last week’s budget posed for photos with a chessboard.
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But her chess champion claim has been disputed by a former junior champion, Alex Edmans, who has accused her of misrepresenting her credentials.
“Her claim was quite specific,” Edmans, now a professor of finance at the London Business School, told Ali Fortescue on the Politics Hub on Sky News.
“She said she was the British girls’ under-14 champion. There was one event that can go on that title, which is the British Championship. And in the year that she claimed, it was Emily Howard who won that title instead.
“She did indeed win a quite different title. There was a British Women’s Chess Association championship, but that’s a more minor title. I’ve won titles like the British squad title, but that’s not the same.
“Just like running a marathon in London is not the same as the London Marathon, there was one event which is very prestigious, which is the British Championship.
“So the dispute is not whether she was a good or bad chess player. That shouldn’t be the criterion for a chancellor. But if you weren’t the British champion, you shouldn’t make that statement.”
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Oh dear! So now, along with allegations of plagiarism, a dodgy CV and “lying” – according to Ms Badenoch – about the nation’s finances, the chancellor is between a rook and a hard place.
Or is she? “This story is absolute nonsense,” a Treasury mate told Sky News. No word from the No.10 knight, Sir Keir Starmer, or his Downing Street ranks, however.
Emily Howard, as it happens, is now an accomplished composer, having graduated from the chessboard to the keyboard.
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The chancellor’s opponents, meanwhile, claim her budget blunders means the Treasury queen has now become a pawn, there for the taking.
But since Rachel Reeves did indeed win a chess title, just not the one she claimed, her supporters insist she can justifiably claim to have been a champion.
So it’s too soon for Kemi Badenoch and the Conservatives to claim checkmate. The dispute remains a stalemate. For now.
