Who could the next Chancellor be?

The next Chancellor matters more to people’s money than most Cabinet appointments, because this is the person setting the tone on tax, borrowing, spending and whether the markets believe the numbers add up.

Rachel Reeves could stay to provide continuity, but a new Prime Minister may want a Chancellor who better reflects their own economic vision. Names will fly around, but the market test is simple: is the person credible, disciplined and willing to make difficult choices?

For normal people, the impact will show up through tax thresholds, pensions, benefits, mortgage rates, business confidence and job creation. A Chancellor seen as reckless on borrowing could push gilt yields up, which can feed into swap rates and fixed mortgage pricing. A Chancellor who restores confidence could calm that pressure.

The country does not need another Chancellor with slogans. It needs one with a proper growth plan, clear priorities and enough honesty to admit that every promise has to be paid for.

Ed Miliband is now a serious name for Chancellor, but households should not pretend any of the options are painless. With Starmer going and Rachel Reeves’ position inevitably under pressure, the next Chancellor inherits a brutal brief- weak growth, stretched public finances and voters already fed up with being squeezed. For people’s money, the risk is not one dramatic Budget raid, but a steady grind of frozen tax bands, tighter reliefs and more pressure on savings, pensions and investments. Markets will want discipline; Labour members may want generosity. The next Chancellor cannot give both. Whoever gets the job will have to choose between upsetting the bond market or upsetting households and neither is a vote-winner.

Starmer leaves utterly defeated, the country's sixth PM in the last ten years. If Burnham is to survive longer than the average Premier League football manager, he needs to get his Chancellor appointment right. Miliband may be the darling of Labour members, but he would frighten the bond markets, risking a re-run of the Truss mini-budget fiasco of September 2022. Keeping Rachel Reeves on would be met with dismay after £80 billion of tax rises across the last two budgets. John Healey and Yvette Cooper may both be seen as safe pairs of hands but uninspiring choices. Wes Streeting, meanwhile, managed to string a few sentences together on economic growth the other day that sounded plausible. The new Chancellor's immediate priority will be reassuring markets to protect the Pound and keep government borrowing costs - already far higher than our economic peers, and consequently mortgage rates - stable. Burnham's commitment to existing fiscal rules aims to prevent volatility.