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Rachel Reeves no doubt hoped a trove of emails she released last night would help exonerate her, but the move ended up raising more questions than it answered.
On Wednesday, the Daily Mail revealed the Chancellor failed to obtain a selective licence when she placed her family home in Dulwich, south London, on the rental market last year as they moved into No 11 Downing Street.
At first, Ms Reeves was quick to blame her letting agent for failing to tell her she needed a licence.
Yet less than 24 hours later, she completed a screeching U-turn, informing Sir Keir Starmer her property manager had, in fact, offered to apply for one but had simply failed to do so.
But instead of putting the matter to bed the Chancellor's contradictory explanations sparked yet more questions as she battled to stave off calls for her to quit.
Why had her story changed so completely, and so quickly? Here we break down the events of the past few days.
Ms Reeves was first approached by this newspaper on Tuesday, as we put it to her she may have committed a criminal offence by failing to obtain a selective licence, as required by Southwark Council.
It put her boss, Sir Keir Starmer, in a tight spot, after he had previously declared 'lawmakers can't be lawbreakers'.
After a day of what now appears to have been fraught discussions with her husband, Nicholas Joicey, the Chancellor told the Daily Mail that 'she had not been made aware of the licensing requirement' but had taken 'immediate action' and 'applied for the licence' as soon as it was brought to her attention.
She described it as 'an inadvertent mistake' and said she had referred herself to the independent ethics adviser in 'the spirit of transparency'.
The explanation was that the Chancellor had let out her four-bedroom property via a letting agent, and she did not receive any advice that a licence was required.
The Chancellor said she had informed the Prime Minister in a letter.
At around 10pm, the Daily Mail published the revelations, prompting Ms Reeves to make her statement public.
In response, Sir Keir said further investigation was 'not necessary' after he consulted his independent ethics adviser, Sir Laurie Magnus.
This, however, did not wash with the Opposition.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch called for the Prime Minister to 'launch a full investigation' – and over the course of yesterday afternoon a steady stream of revelations turned up the heat on the beleaguered Chancellor.
First, it emerged that Ms Reeves had backed a campaign for landlord licences in her own constituency of Leeds West and Pudsey.
As recently as last week, she was posting on social media welcoming the expansion of licensing policy by Leeds City Council.
But if Ms Reeves knew some landlords needed a licence – and she was one herself – why did she not check if she needed one?
Inevitably, attention turned to the letting agent that Ms Reeves had been so quick to blame – Harvey & Wheeler, an independent agent founded in Belgravia in 1855, now operating predominantly in the affluent Dulwich Village area.
Its owner, Gareth Martin, issued a statement at around 5.30pm yesterday that presented more questions than answers.
In it, he said his firm always informed its clients of the need for a licence.
'In an effort to be helpful,' he continued, 'our previous property manager offered to apply for a licence' on behalf of Ms Reeves and her husband, who co-own the property.
This, however, never happened, because the property manager suddenly quit a few days before the tenancy was due to begin, Mr Martin explained.
He admitted the correspondence would have given their clients 'the impression that a licence had been applied for'.
Pointedly, however, Mr Martin also said 'it is not our responsibility to apply' and that 'the onus is on them [the landlords] to apply'.
Apart from stating a matter of legal fact, Mr Martin's statement begged an obvious question: if the letting agent had told their clients a licence was required – even though they failed to apply for one as offered – why did Ms Reeves previously state that they hadn't? Around 15 minutes later, the Chancellor sought to clarify.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, she said her initial explanation was based on conversations her husband had with Harvey & Wheeler on Wednesday.
But on Thursday, Ms Reeves continued, emails were found showing that on July 17, 2024, the property manager had said to her husband that a licence would be required and the agency could apply for it.
Alongside the letter, the Chancellor released a series of heavily redacted emails between her husband and the property manager.
The email from the letting agency dated July 17 does indeed state that 'we will need to apply for a licence under the Selective Licensing Scheme via Southwark Council'.
A subsequent email from a property manager on July 22 offers to 'arrange the Selective Licence once the tenants move in', and this was mentioned again in emails on July 26, when the cost of the application was discussed.
On August 13 Mr Joicey tells the property manager to 'go ahead' and arrange the licence.
Later that day, the property manager confirms they will do so once the tenant moves in. This is the last correspondence the Chancellor has chosen to make public.
More than a year has now passed since and it is not known what, if any, further inquiries were made with regards to the licence application.
Last night, senior Tories said the Chancellor's contradictory version of events posed further questions, both for her and the Prime Minister.
Did the Chancellor or her husband check on the progress of the application, and if not, why not?
Why did she claim 'we were not aware that a licence was necessary' when the letting agent had told her husband that a selective licence would be required?
And why were the Prime Minister and his independent ethics adviser so quick to conclude that further investigation was not necessary?
Despite the Chancellor's changing narrative, one crucial fact remains the same.
As she admitted to the Prime Minister in her letter last night, it was her responsibility to secure the licence. She failed. She broke the law.
If Ms Reeves had been hoping that her latest explanation would be the end of the saga, she may be sadly mistaken.