It was 2023 when Minouche Shafik became president of Columbia University in New York. But he resigned after being criticized for how he han...
It was 2023 when Minouche Shafik became president of Columbia University in New York. But he resigned after being criticized for how he handled student protests over Israel's war in Gaza.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has made Minouche Shafik, who used to be president of Columbia University, his top economic adviser. He did this to strengthen his team before the end of the year, which is expected to be tough.
Starmer hired Shafik and brought Darren Jones, who is Rachel Reeves's deputy as finance minister, to his Downing Street office. This shows that he thinks he needs better economic advice before the budget later this year, which is likely to include more tax increases.
Starmer's office said in a statement that Jones will be replaced by Labour lawmaker James Murray, who had a lower-level job in the finance ministry.
As part of a larger change at Downing Street, Starmer also hired a new director of communications and fired his main private secretary, who runs the office for his team.
Some in Starmer's party have said that his team hasn't done enough to sell his government's sometimes tough policy decisions and celebrate its successes since it took office more than a year ago. This is because Labour's poll scores have dropped.
The new appointments may improve the economic advice Starmer gets before Reeves's tough budget. Reeves doesn't have much room to move after sticking to her "fiscal rules" that aim to balance daily spending with tax income by 2029.
Someone from the Labour Party said, "I think giving Darren Jones a job is a good idea." "He clearly pays attention to the little things and also knows about politics."
Shafik will bring more knowledge.
From August 2014 to February 2017, Shafik was the Bank of England's deputy governor for markets and banks. She quit in the middle of her term to become vice chancellor of the London School of Economics.
In 2023, she became president of Columbia University in New York. But she resigned after a little more than a year because of criticism from both sides about how the university handled months of student protests over Israel's war in Gaza.
Shafik used to be the top civil servant in Britain's foreign aid ministry. After that, she was deputy managing director at the International Monetary Fund, where she was in charge of the IMF's work in Europe and the Middle East during the Arab Spring and the euro zone debt crisis.
"This role and the additional expertise will support the government to go further and faster in driving economic growth and raising living standards for all," Starmer's team said.
Shafik was born in Egypt and grew up in the southern United States. He then got his PhD in economics from the University of Oxford and is a non-partisan member of parliament's upper house, the House of Lords.
She wrote in a book in 2021 that policies should include income floors with rewards to work, pensions that are tied to life expectancy, and early childhood interventions to make sure that everyone has the same chances.