The Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds has been accused of fabricating his CV after it emerged he repeatedly described himself as a solicitor despite never qualifying. The Telegraph has more.
The Business Secretary previously claimed on his website that he worked as a solicitor in the Manchester branch of the law firm Addleshaw Goddard before becoming an MP.
He also told the Commons in 2014 that he “worked as a solicitor in Manchester city centre” before switching careers.
In fact, he didn’t qualify for the title because he never finished his training contract, having quit the course in 2010 to run for Parliament.
This means he never registered with the Solicitors Regulation Authority, which is required to legally practice as a solicitor in England and Wales.
He also previously stated on his LinkedIn profile that he was simultaneously a “solicitor” and a “trainee solicitor” between 2009 and 2010, according to screenshots obtained by the political blog Guido Fawkes, which first reported the discrepancies.
Mr Reynolds also implied he had worked as a solicitor in a tweet in 2011, the year after he was first elected as an MP.
“Personally, I find being an MP better for work/life balance than being a solicitor and a councillor,” he said.
The relevant webpage from Mr Reynolds’s site no longer exists, while his LinkedIn now only makes reference to his role as “trainee solicitor” at Addleshaw Goddard.
Elsewhere, Mr Reynolds has also described himself as a trainee, or training to become a solicitor.
According to Guido, a spokesman for the Business Secretary said his reference to working as a solicitor in 2014 was a mistake, and that he tries to make clear he was only ever a trainee.
Meanwhile, Rachel from Accounts has come under fire once more after it emerged that she falsely claimed to have published in one of the world’s leading economic journals. From the Mail:
The Chancellor’s entry in Who’s Who, the biographical reference publication, lists her as a contributor to the Journal of Political Economy.
But, according to the Times, the prestigious journal has no record of any article by Ms Reeves.
The Chancellor and an ex-colleague were found to have instead published a 2007 paper in a less well-regarded publication, the European Journal of Political Economy.
The error has been compared to claiming to have studied at the University of Oxford rather than the lower-ranked Oxford Brookes University.
Ms Reeves’ entry in Who’s Who also lists her as having worked as an economist at the Bank of England until 2009, despite her having left in March 2006.
An exaggeration of the Chancellor’s time at the Bank has previously attracted controversy, with Ms Reeves having once boasted of working there for “a decade”.
In total, the Chancellor spent five years and seven months at the Bank.
Her LinkedIn profile was recently updated after it was revealed to show she had worked there for months longer.
It was pointed out that those with entries in Who’s Who are asked to review, update and correct them each year.
Sir Richard Barnett, an Emeritus Professor at the University of Ulster, told the newspaper that the two economic journals were “chalk and cheese”.
“One is world leading, it’s where economists aspire to publish and it’s incredibly competitive to get published in the Journal of Political Economy,” he said.
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