Read more: "Octopus Osborne" triumphs, for now"
Read more: Could Ed Balls have delivered the Autumn Statement?
It turns out there is something worse than Jeremy Corbyn at Prime Minister's Questions. Unfortunately, it is John McDonnell responding to the Autumn Statement.
There is something strangely and appropriately Stakhanovite about the current Labour leadership. Stolidly, doggedly and dully they dedicate themselves to being worse this week then they were last week. It's a dirty job—but someone's got to do it.
It was in this mood, surely, that John McDonnell chose the joke for his speech. Building himself up to what was clearly the crux of his speech, McDonnell signalled that he was going to make a funny. Now, politicians are not naturally amusing—except unintentionally. They frantically use body language to signal that a joke is trundling—ever so slowly—towards the audience. So it was with McDonnell, labouring towards his punchline like a man climbing up Everest without oxygen.
The Shadow Chancellor is possibly the greatest clown since Grock—the Swiss genius who famously did not care if his audience laughed, the shock was the point. And with McDonnell shock was all you got. There are many reasons to mock George Osborne and his kowtowing to China. Human rights abuses. Geo-political concerns. Threats to our allies. The sheer humiliation.
But making a Chairman Mao based joke is not one of them.
Mao is the greatest mass murderer in history. Not the worst in some carefully curated category but the worst ever. 45m people were killed in the Great Leap Forward. At the time—in the early sixties—that would have basically been the entire population of the UK. All of us.
What McDonnell did was to read a quote from Mao's Little Red Book. It was probably the first time that book was quoted in the Commons. And it was certainly one of the most boring things ever quoted in the chamber:
"We must learn to do economic work from all who know how, no matter who they are, we must esteem them as teachers, learning from them respectfully and conscientiously, but we must not pretend to know what we do not know."
Except.
Except that these were the very words used by the Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution to bully, coerce and intimidate the intellectuals. That is, the people who knew what to do and how to do it. These words dripped blood as well as irony.
I know a highly successful Chinese woman amongst whose starkest childhood memories is the howling of wolves around the labour camp at night as a child in the remote rural area of China to which her family were exiled in the 60s. The Little Red Book is no joke to her, it was the emblem of immiseration.
It is impossible to imagine a quote from Mein Kampf being used to make a point about Anglo-German relations. There is no imaginable justification for using the words of another genocidal dictator. None this side of stupidity, that is. And that is not an excuse nor an explanation just a statement of fact. McDonnell is manifestly not up to the task. I say this not out of anger but out of pity. The atmosphere in the Commons was what a bear baiting must have felt like. The Tory backbenchers shreaked "More! More!"
What was Labour's considered response to the combined Autumn Statement and Spending Review? It is hard to say. The longest section of McDonnell's speech seemed to be arguing that Osborne's betrayal was not cutting spending fast enough—and hence the deficit had not been eliminated. At least I think that was the point—I drifted off from time to time. Compared to the Shadow Chancellor Al Gore is Demosthenes.
George Osborne offered so many targets yesterday. Two u-turns. An assault on social housing. A breach of his own welfare cap. Doubling down on the failure that is Universal Credit. A threat to schools funding. Tax rises. Re-announcements—my favourite was Ebbsfleet, once more 15,000 houses were again promised in a "garden city" where only 350 have been built.
So many targets—and McDonnell missed every one. Well nearly every one. He did achieve his most difficult shot. He managed to shoot himself in both feet while they were firmly jammed in his mouth. In his own, tragically ironic words—"economic illiteracy" and "incompetence."
Read more: Could Ed Balls have delivered the Autumn Statement?
It turns out there is something worse than Jeremy Corbyn at Prime Minister's Questions. Unfortunately, it is John McDonnell responding to the Autumn Statement.
There is something strangely and appropriately Stakhanovite about the current Labour leadership. Stolidly, doggedly and dully they dedicate themselves to being worse this week then they were last week. It's a dirty job—but someone's got to do it.
It was in this mood, surely, that John McDonnell chose the joke for his speech. Building himself up to what was clearly the crux of his speech, McDonnell signalled that he was going to make a funny. Now, politicians are not naturally amusing—except unintentionally. They frantically use body language to signal that a joke is trundling—ever so slowly—towards the audience. So it was with McDonnell, labouring towards his punchline like a man climbing up Everest without oxygen.
The Shadow Chancellor is possibly the greatest clown since Grock—the Swiss genius who famously did not care if his audience laughed, the shock was the point. And with McDonnell shock was all you got. There are many reasons to mock George Osborne and his kowtowing to China. Human rights abuses. Geo-political concerns. Threats to our allies. The sheer humiliation.
But making a Chairman Mao based joke is not one of them.
Mao is the greatest mass murderer in history. Not the worst in some carefully curated category but the worst ever. 45m people were killed in the Great Leap Forward. At the time—in the early sixties—that would have basically been the entire population of the UK. All of us.
What McDonnell did was to read a quote from Mao's Little Red Book. It was probably the first time that book was quoted in the Commons. And it was certainly one of the most boring things ever quoted in the chamber:
"We must learn to do economic work from all who know how, no matter who they are, we must esteem them as teachers, learning from them respectfully and conscientiously, but we must not pretend to know what we do not know."
Except.
Except that these were the very words used by the Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution to bully, coerce and intimidate the intellectuals. That is, the people who knew what to do and how to do it. These words dripped blood as well as irony.
I know a highly successful Chinese woman amongst whose starkest childhood memories is the howling of wolves around the labour camp at night as a child in the remote rural area of China to which her family were exiled in the 60s. The Little Red Book is no joke to her, it was the emblem of immiseration.
It is impossible to imagine a quote from Mein Kampf being used to make a point about Anglo-German relations. There is no imaginable justification for using the words of another genocidal dictator. None this side of stupidity, that is. And that is not an excuse nor an explanation just a statement of fact. McDonnell is manifestly not up to the task. I say this not out of anger but out of pity. The atmosphere in the Commons was what a bear baiting must have felt like. The Tory backbenchers shreaked "More! More!"
What was Labour's considered response to the combined Autumn Statement and Spending Review? It is hard to say. The longest section of McDonnell's speech seemed to be arguing that Osborne's betrayal was not cutting spending fast enough—and hence the deficit had not been eliminated. At least I think that was the point—I drifted off from time to time. Compared to the Shadow Chancellor Al Gore is Demosthenes.
George Osborne offered so many targets yesterday. Two u-turns. An assault on social housing. A breach of his own welfare cap. Doubling down on the failure that is Universal Credit. A threat to schools funding. Tax rises. Re-announcements—my favourite was Ebbsfleet, once more 15,000 houses were again promised in a "garden city" where only 350 have been built.
So many targets—and McDonnell missed every one. Well nearly every one. He did achieve his most difficult shot. He managed to shoot himself in both feet while they were firmly jammed in his mouth. In his own, tragically ironic words—"economic illiteracy" and "incompetence."
