projected results from the german parliamentary elections so the central left social democrats are ahead of the conservative christian democrats by about 2% of the vote. the general secretary of the social democrat said his party, led by the finance minister olaf scholz, clearly have the mandate to govern. the british government is to suspend the competition law in an attempt to ease disruption at petrol deliveries. a shortage of lorry drivers about fuels delivery supply worries. ministers are also considering deploying the army to deliver fuel to the pumps. the united states have beaten europe to reclaim the ryder cup. the americans, led by steve stricker, one x19— nine in wisconsin. it is the 27th time the us team has won the ryder cup.

welcome to political thinking. while i have a conversation in the interrogation of someone who shapes our political thinking about what has shaped theirs. my guest this week has a pretty daunting task. they have to persuade britain to persuade you that labour can be trusted with your money. rachel reeves, who was made shadow chancellor in may, is used to thinking a few moves ahead. she used to be under—14 uk chess champion. maybe she has a winning gambit. rachel reeves, welcome to political thinking. you once said that chess was the perfect preparation for politics. really?

it's about getting you to look ahead and think strategically, not just tactically and what your opponent's next move will be. it's not poker! a gambit giving something up? sacraficing the little people. i didn't play the queen's gambit. i was more sicilian defence. i'm a very basic player. it's the defence you do if you're playing black and the white player moves their kings pawn forward two spaces, and the other player moves their queen's

pawn two places. i read about the sicilian defence because i knew it was your favourite move, and i'm told it is turning defence very quickly into attack? yes, and i was an attacking chess player. when you play in big tournaments, you get two hours on the clock. i like that but i actually did better, ithink, at speed chess and just going for it. where you inspired when you watched the queen's gambit on the telly? overcoming of a lot of male prejudice. yes, chess is incredibly male—dominated. when i was playing in the 80s

and 90s, and it is still today. there are female chess players, the polgar sisters. when i was probably about 11 or 12, june became the best female player in history and the highest ever rated. i think she was the youngest grand master ever. she was absolutely amazing. but there was a lot of prejudice because i remember one of the earliest games i played, i was in my primary school hall and it was a weekend chess tournament. i was drawn against another player and his friend said, "lucky for you, you've got a girl. you'll win easily." i was absolutely determined to win that game, and win i did. one grand master once said the object is to crush the opponents. did you crush his mind?

i don't want to be competitive with bobby fischer. i wanted to show that girls are just as good as boys. but was home where you talked politics a lot? was it at home when you would sit and have tea or breakfast and talk politics? at primary school, about the same age, when i was eight. it was 1987 and a general election, and my friends were talking about who their mums and dads would vote for in the election. i thought i had no idea what they were talking about, and i felt really embarrassed. i went home and asked my dad, and he put on the six o'clock news and said that's who we vote for. i repeated this story in 2010 after i got elected, and i was on the phone with my dad, and he said he didn't think that story was quite true. he said if that's the case,

and must be the first time in your life you've done anything i told you to do. but i remember it quite viivdly. so they point to the telly and they say, kinnock, that's our guy, but was it more who they were? your parents were both primary school teachers and would have looked to labour at that stage with mrs thatcher in power. was itjust a given? they were never members of political parties. that wasn't something we talked about hugely. but there was always that backdrop. my mum was a special needs teacher. funding was cut so she became a teacher, and it meant the kids she had been supporting

wouldn't get it any more. you may remember she was known as tbw, that bloody woman. they weren't massively... they didn't campaign or anything like that. we didn't go on demos or anything, but my dad's parents were salvationist and very committed to the salvation army. incredibly good and hard—working people. everything they had, they gave back to the community. they were absolutely wonderful. were those values drilled into you? christian socialist values. i was always brought up, you should give something back, but you should work as hard as you can to make a contribution. mrs thatcher you say was not liked in your house, but it wasn't that political. when you look back now, what do you think about it? are there things to learn

from it or admired about it? i was polticised because there were so many cuts. our library was turned into a classroom because there was more students than space, and there were never enough textbooks. i learned the conservative government we had didn't care enough about schools like mine and the kids i grew up with. and that's why ijoined the labour party. it's those values that still drives me. but there are people who say we have to learn something. what i would say, i wrote a book about women in politics, and obviously, i wrote about thatcher in that book. it made me think when i was growing up, i knew i didn't like her but i never doubted that a woman could lead and get a topjob,

because there she was doing it. i didn't agree with her politics, but i think in some ways, she inspired women to believe that they could do it. you've got working—class values coming from your grandparents, but it's a classic upbringing. emma raducanu. h9 hg wells. charles darwin. enid bl on. my daughter is a huge fan and she's gone through about half of the books. but it's a very middle—class upbringing. bromley is middle class and your parents are teachers. it's not comfortable, i wouldn't have thought. or was it? it was ordinary.

my parents were good parents, they worked hard, they did a huge amount for us. the chess, music lessons, they were good parents who cared about our education and we were lucky in a lot of ways. my secondary school, very few children stayed on. even fewer went to university. there were loads of really bright girls who perhaps didn't get the opportunities that i had. and i wanted to spread that opportunity. again, i was lucky. my parents and the reason i carried on playing — i played the flute as well as my chess, and i carried on going to those lessons. we didn't have a huge amount of money but he wanted me to have the best opportunities in life. which you did, because you went

on to oxford university. in many ways, this is a classic politician's upbringing. i went there too. this is what politicians do. what i'm not them! we are worlds apart. if you went to winchester colleges, i remember at my school, when i was in year 11, having a special assembly where the head teacher said two girls from their school applied for oxford at the first time ever, and i remember their names. and i remember thinking then, maybe i can do that. and it never occurred to me before because no one from our school had ever done that before. do they know you remember them? yes because one of them, the one who went in, she went to my college.

i have never heard of them, and i applied to the one she went to. so i went there and i said to her, i'm here because of you. you were very different from these tory politicians. rishi sunak�*s background, middle—class, one parent a doctor, parents and the public sector. do you see some similarity. there a connection there? there's just huge differences. he went to winchester college. they have the money to be able to send him there. we took different routes

in life and i think we had very different upbringings. he made his money in the city and you could have, couldn't you ? you considered a job. i was offered two jobs. goldman sachs and the bank of england, and i chose the bank because i wanted to be an economist and i believed in public service. i had a great time at the bank. my firstjob was at the japan desk, analysing the japanese economy. little did i know that there might be parallels with our own economy. you applied to goldman sachs? yes, and i applied to some banks. i wanted to be an economist. did you sit there, thinking you could work there?

i had these two jobs in front of me and i made a choice. when you're at the bank you get seconded, you work in the british embassy in washington, dc. it was post 9/ii. it was, and the reason why this was available was because the british government and civil service wanted to up their capacity at the british embassy in lots of different ways. one of them was its economic analysis. obviously, there were huge problems in the global economy after 9/11 with recession and interest rates cut. so, i have the privilege of working at the embassy and trying to understand what was going

on in the the us economy. i was 23. did you meet the politicians coming across? gordon brown, in those days. i remember irvin king coming over and he met alan greenspan. and then the governor of the fed in washington. we went into the white house and met the chief adviser to the president that we used as our text books. ministers came over, but so did mervyn king. that was an amazing opportunity. you've only had this job since may. you haven't got long as i said in the introduction to persuade people. are you good at saying no? in thisjob, you have to,

and every day, colleagues will come with really good ideas. everything i say we will do, how we would fund it? that means you do have to say no to people because you've got to prioritise. what would our priorities be as an incoming labour government around schools, nhs and jobs of the future, particularly in those green industries? what's the best advice you've had. of the chancellors said to you, is there is one thing i could do? i spoke to all of them when i was appointed to thejob, and gordon, who i admire a lot, he said you have to have the discipline, but you've got to have something worth being disciplined for. that's intriguing in a week

when keir starmer has produced this essay. the criticism is that it is not very exciting. is the task about reassurance? don't worry, we've learnt our lesson or is it inspirational or you have to do both. we've got to do both, but in myjob, and keir starmer said people have to trust me with their money. being trustworthy and being honest and straight with people is really important to me, and showing i would treat taxpayers' money with respect. i remember my mum would keep all of her receipts, get her bank statement and she would tick off the bank statement against her receipts. we weren't poor but we didn't have money to waste, and she was careful with her money. when you pay your taxes, i think the chancellor has to be equally careful with people's money. you also have to work out why you lost. you wrote a book in

2010, why vote labour? could you write a book about why labour lost that followed? and when did you first realise you would lose? labour just keep losing. wee've lost four elections in a row now. only three moments. i945, i964 and 1997 when we look labour has one back and we won big. why have we lost four elections? people didn't trust us. they preferred the others to us. we have got to look at ourselves and learn those lessons and turn those things around. as harold wilson did and as tony blair did. that is what i want to learn from. i think you need to understand, or we need to understand what you think.

when i had this conversation with ed miliband, hejust produced his book which was about go big. i put it to him that labour's problem was because you didn't listen to people and you didn't like lots of people's attitudes, whether on immigration. labour appeared very judgemental. whether it's on benefits, they appearjudgemental. there was a sense on brexit that labour did not like many people they needed to vote for them. and keir starmer totally recognises this, and that's why he spent this summer going the length and breadth of the country meeting people who haven't voted for us. on some occasions for many years, and in some, the last election was the first time ever that they hadn't voted labour. we've got to listen and take on board what they're

saying and to change because the labour party is a party that was formed by working people to give a voice to working people, and we are utterly failing in that mission. there is an intriguing phrase in that. take back control. it's used by keir starmer in his long essay. he thinks voters want that and have not had it. were you saying in some ways to people who voted leave, i know you did want to take back control, but you haven't, but labour will help you? around two thirds of the national average is earnings in my constituency. a lot of them are in insecure work. have to balance work with uncertain hours with childcare.

people don't feel they have control in their lives. so, that's what people want in their lives. on the front bench, you said some things that would appeared to those that would get you into trouble. you said at one point that you didn't want labour to be the party of the unemployed. there was a question that was put to me — is that what labour is? they've got to be much broader than that, we're a party of working people. we created the welfare state to offer a safety net and support people when they are out of work. were you trying to say there's a danger that you look like the party of welfare? that's what i was being accused of in the interview, is that labour had become a very narrow party, and i wanted to say no.

the way i express some things did cause hurt to people, and i never meant to do that. the labour party is a party of working—class people and it did amazing things. to give working—class people those things they didn't have before. what's interesting, talking to you about these things when you were on the front bench under ed miliband is arguably, whyjeremy corbyn left you on the back benches. there were people at that time who called you a red tory, suggesting you weren't welcome in the labour party. i find that very difficult. i find it very difficult because ijoined the labour party when i was 17. i've been in the labour party for 25 years now. i love the party and its history, and when people said that to me, it's like,

it's my family. don't tell me i don't belong here. i found that very hard. afterjeremy corbyn became leader, to people shouting that at me, i find it very difficult. you look quite emotional just remembering that. yeah, i found it very difficult because i love the labour party and i've been delivering leaflets and knocking on doors for 25 years. people who in many cases have justjoined telling me that this wasn't my party. i guess they would say you are part of the nando�*s five rising stars. luciana was hounded out of the party. you think i feel a bit emotional, imagine how she felt.

her great uncle was a labour mp. she is from the party, from the labour party. do you want to welcome her back? i would love to have luciana back in the party. she is still a friend of mine. whether she would want to come back, you would have to ask her. do you feel you got the labour party back? i stayed in the labour party because i believed in some of the darkest hours, i think anti—semitism was our darkest hour, i believed there was a way back for labour. some people made different choices, and i understand why they made them. luciana felt she was hounded out of the party. i feel like we've turned a corner on that, and i'm proud of the small contribution i guess i have made to that.

but i am really proud to be a labour mp and be in keir starmer�*s shadow cabinet. you've got labelled and will probably groan, you got labelled by an accidental tweet from the editor of newsnight. just remind us. he said i was boring, snoring. it wasn't written to you, to be fair. that's true. channel 4 is very welcome in leeds, and we love them. that is a mistake, but for the grace of god, go i because all of us could have done that. a serious question. should a shadow chancellor being boring, snoring? ever so slightly,

ever so slightly dull? i think there are certainly worse criticisms that you could lay at the door of a chancellor. if you could be a chess piece, what would it be? i think i'd be the queen. the most powerful piece on the board. i want to be the queen to get the opponent and checkmate. if you're asking if i want to be the leader of the labour party, that is never something i have aspired to do. thejob i want more than anything else is chancellor, i think i'm well—qualified. takes off glasses. rachel reeves, thank you forjoining me on political thinking. thank you, nick. if chess is like politics, the truth is we're more than halfway through it. labour find themselves

on the defensive. the tories have already claimed some crucial pieces. have the labour party got the moves up the sleeves in here to take advantage? to seize victory from defeat? next week, they have their conference. we might get the first answer to that. that's it from this edition of political thinking. thanks for watching. hello. it's going to feel like the weather has basically flipped into full—on autumn mode overnight, which it kind of has. through the weekend we sat on some very warm air, this week it's going to be much cooler and some spells of heavy rain to come. through the weekend

we are in a warm, southerly air stream overnight sunday into monday as this front sweeps across, we flip round to a westerly or north—westerly air stream, much cooler and it will be much more unsettled as well. here's the boundary between the warm air in the east and the cool air coming in from the west. a weather front that makes for a wet start to the day for eastern scotland, the eastern side of england. pulls away quite sharpish for the afternoon. should be a lot of sunshine around but it will just feel cooler than it has done for quite some time now and the westerly wind will feed quite a few showers into western exposures. more showers and another windy day to come on tuesday. little bit of a breather thanks to a brief ridge of high pressure on wednesday. end of the week, though, and the low pressure is running the show yet again.

neck and neck in germany. a tight result in the general election. here in the uk, as concerns continue over the country's fuel supplies government ministers consider asking the army to step in. a church collapses after being engulfed in a river of lava. the spanish island's volcanic eruption goes on. a huge win for the united states in the ryder cup as they regain support�*s ultimate team prize.