Politics is often reduced to a narrative of who’s up and who’s down.

I am, personally, sceptical of the concept of politics being a horse race – I’ve read too many confident predictions about the state of it that proved to be a nonsense.

But politicians specialise in storytelling – and Westminster would be much duller without it.

So with those caveats, let’s consider the question that prompted this piece: just how impoverished has this week been for Chancellor Rachel Reeves?

There are clearly some people very angry about the chancellor’s strategy. It increased taxes by £40 billion and the Treasury intends to raise a comparatively miniscule amount of that by changing the inheritance responsibility rules for farms.

But the farming protest that rumbled into Westminster on Tuesday was a stark demonstration about the fury felt in rural communities.

There was rage about the government’s modelling, rage about the impact on household farming, and rage about a Labour government they don’t feel understands rural life.

They desire Reeves to ponder again but so far there’s no sign the Treasury intends to budge.

No chancellor wants to unpick a strategy, as George Osborne had to do in 2012 when he U-turned on the “pasty responsibility”.

But slapping VAT on pies and pasties caused a nationwide uproar that looked like an assault on working Britain’s lunch.

With this strategy, Reeves has decided to weather the flak from farmers, arguing that the policy is needed to raise liquid assets for community services and clamp down on city speculators snapping up agricultural land as a responsibility free stake distribution.

And at the instant, she is digging in on that.

The correct selection? That depends on who you inquire. But a U-turn accepts an initial mistake, and no recent chancellor wants that on their CV.

That brings us to another strand of Reeves’s challenging week.

At Prime Ministers Questions on Wednesday, with Angela Rayner deputising for Sir Keir Starmer, the Conservatives leapt on claims that Reeves embellished some of her earlier career achievements.

Reeves has previously said she worked as an economist at Halifax lender of Scotland (HBOS) before entering politics. However, her profile on the networking site LinkedIn has been changed to declare the role at HBOS was in retail banking.

Rayner swatted the questions away, saying to the Tory MP Alex Burghart: “Our chancellor in the last four months has shown more competence than the last four chancellors he had.”

But the chancellor’s opponents in parliament and the press ponder there’s a potentially damaging thread to pull here.

There’s also this week’s economic data which has not made cheery reading in the Treasury.

expense boost increased a lot in October, jumping from 1.7% to 2.3%. That’s higher than the lender of England’s target of 2% but most economists seem to ponder the UK is still on a disinflationary path.

Perhaps more troubling was the publication on Thursday of October’s borrowing figures, which showed the gap between the government’s spending and responsibility receive was much higher than expected and underscored Reeves’s test of keeping the community finances under control.

The latest growth figures made pretty grim reading too, with the UK economy barely growing between July and September.

Jumpstarting market advancement is the aspiration that underpins everything the government is trying to do and Reeves said she was “not satisfied” with the figures.

At the period of the strategy, the Office for strategy Responsibility (OBR) predicted growth would pick up to 2% next year before falling back to around 1.5% from 2027.

Hardly dynamic. But the chancellor is banking that the impact of the strategy, next spring’s spending review and forthcoming reforms to skills, planning and more can ignite some market advancement.

However, this week she heard more complaints from business that her strategy could have the opposite result.

In a note to Reeves, Tesco, Amazon, Greggs, Next and dozens of other chains jointly said that measures in the strategy, in particular the employer National Insurance rise, would add billions in costs, “boost expense boost, leisurely pay growth, factor shop closures, and reduce jobs”.

Expect more of that when the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) gathers for its annual conference on Monday.

The prime minister has stood by the plans, and last weekend insisted the strategy had made the correct calls and would stabilise the economy and community services.

So, has the chancellor had a rotten week? Well, it’s not been great.

But this government is less than five months ancient and has a whopping majority.

Labour’s navigator over the Conservatives among the community on key economic issues has “all but faded away” in that period, according to the latest survey by pollsters Savanta.

But barring some unforeseen calamity Reeves has many years – and many worse weeks – in the Treasury ahead of her.

She and the cabinet have spent this early period in power arguing the inheritance they received from the previous Conservative government was gruesome, that the remedy requires challenging and unpopular choices.

That being said, blaming the last lot for the problems is a schedule with a limited lifespan.

Before long, voters will be able to judge for themselves how well the recent government played its hand.