Chancellor Rachel Reeves is preparing to deliver a major speech next week amid widespread Westminster speculation that she is about to be removed from No11, with Andy Burnham tipped to oust her. The address matters because it comes at a moment of acute political uncertainty over her future and the direction of Labour's economic policy, and could end up sounding like a farewell.

Reeves will go ahead with the traditional Mansion House address to the financial and professional services sector next Tuesday, despite organisers reportedly asking whether she wished to postpone. The speech may take on a valedictory tone following her repeated warnings about sticking to her fiscal rules. Her allies have not given up on persuading Burnham to keep her, drawing encouragement from a YouGov poll in which a fifth of Labour members wanted her to stay, just behind the 21 per cent favouring Ed Miliband and ahead of other contenders, though 28 per cent were undecided.