I saw Rachel Reeves while out shopping with my teenager. Apparently I completely humiliated myself | Zoe Williams

2026-03-24 - 11:10

It’s hard to know how to handle meeting a famous person in public. I decided to forgo political debate for a simple ‘Hello’, but my daughter assures me I was the most mortifying I’ve ever been This is going to sound improbable, so soon (a year) after I saw Liz Truss at a sixth-form open day, but I went round the clothes shop Hollister yesterday and saw Rachel Reeves embarked on the same pursuit: trying to exist in the world without embarrassing her daughter. The difference this time, apart from all those politics, is that I look a bit like Reeves – not uncannily, but enough that I went to a Halloween party as her one year. I didn’t even dress any particular way – I just brushed my hair and everyone knew who I was. Then I had to explain that the spooky part wasn’t “taxes”, but “third-way politics”. I am older than the chancellor and have a resting doom-face, so the resemblance was never pronounced. But the worse things are going for the government and the economy, the more alike we look, to the extent that it’s become a really annoying running joke. Whenever there’s a problematic headwind that needs an announcement on the rolling news, my kid’s friend goes: “What’s your mum on about now?” Continue reading...