Rachel Reeves
Luck plays a big part in politics and the shadow chancellor took full advantage of her good fortune when Keir Starmer tested positive for Covid just before the October 2021 budget. According to parliamentary tradition, the leader of the opposition responds to the chancellor’s budget speech, but Starmer’s absence meant Reeves stepped in and, by general consent, delivered a polished reply to Rishi Sunak.
No single speech, no matter how widely praised, will be enough to revive Labour’s fortunes after four successive election defeats, and 2022 will be a crucial year for the party and for Reeves. Although the government has been floundering, the message from byelections, opinion polls and focus groups is that the public still have their doubts about Labour.
The former Bank of England economist’s task as shadow chancellor is to come up with an approach to running the economy that is radical enough to be eye-catching yet also reassuring. She will need to do more than attack the Tories for higher taxes and rising inflation: she will need to start fleshing out Labour’s alternative. Larry Elliott
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
The task facing the World Trade Organization’s director general over the next 12 months is simple: to save it from irrelevance or – even worse – from falling apart completely,
When Okonjo-Iweala was appointed last year, much was made of her being the first woman and first African in the role, but it was her reputation as a political operator that decided the contest in her favour.
She will need skills honed as finance minister in her native Nigeria and during 25 years spent at the World Bank to navigate her way through three big issues facing the WTO.
The immediate task is to find agreement to waive patent rights on Covid vaccines so that developing countries can produce their own treatments for the pandemic. Success there would enhance Okonjo-Iweala’s reputation as a political fixer and give her a better chance of resolving two longer-running issues.
When it was created in 1995, the WTO had two core functions: to deliver multilateral trade deals and to settle trade disputes between member states. For the past few years it has struggled to do either under a succession of technocratic leaders. The next year will show whether Okonjo-Iweala can do better. LE
Kristalina Georgieva
When she was selected to succeed Christine Lagarde as the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Georgieva was seen as a safe pair of hands, but it hasn’t quite turned out that way.
She has become the latest occupant of her office to be afflicted by the curse of Washington’s 19th Street, the home of the…
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