PETER OBORNE: Is shadowy Marxist John McDonnell eyeing up Corbyn’s throne?
The fact is that Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell (pictured), long seen as being happy as the power behind the throne, seems to be stealthily moving towards a more dominant position in the Labour Party
Excited audiences at the Edinburgh Fringe are packing in to watch a musical play about a national hero depicted in ‘all his colourful and contradictory glory’. The hero is the legendary Scottish poet Robbie Burns.
One member of the audience who described the performance as ‘terrific’ must have wished that his own life is set on a similarly glorious trajectory.
For the fact is that Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, long seen as being happy as the power behind the throne, seems to be stealthily moving towards a more dominant position in the Labour Party.
Indeed, a photo of him holding forth in a throne-style seat during a question and answer session also in the Scottish capital this week seemed highly symbolic of his grander ambitions.
With Jeremy Corbyn on a break in Romania, McDonnell has pounced. He has taken over as the main voice of Opposition and stolen the headlines.
First, he drove a coach and horses through Labour policy on Scotland. To the horror of the Scottish Labour Party, he said that a Labour government would not block a second referendum on Scottish independence.
Then he threatened to drag the Queen into any future constitutional crisis over Brexit, saying that if Boris Johnson loses a Commons vote of no confidence, he personally would send Corbyn in a cab to Buckingham Palace to say Labour would seize power.
There is no evidence McDonnell asked his boss’s permission. He is freelancing in spectacular fashion and showing utter disregard for hierarchy protocols.
The truth is McDonnell’s showboating is a very clever move. He is exploiting the fact that the parliamentary Tory Party is split, with up to 50 MPs threatening to vote down the Government over a No Deal Brexit.
Also, he is acutely aware that among the public there is bubbling discontent that we have a new Prime Minister — who is unpopular in some areas of the country, and among different social groups — who owes his job to just 92,000 overwhelmingly white, male, rich and English Tory members.
All this should be manna from heaven to a leader of the Opposition ready to supplant a tired and fractious government.
But instead of seizing the initiative, Corbyn has revealed himself as a grizzled 70-year-old who has lost his sense of direction.
Into this vacuum has stepped John McDonnell. And it’s not just the Shadow Chancellor who is taking delight in usurping Corbyn’s authority, other Shadow Cabinet members are making party policy on the hoof.
Why is McDonnell, 67, suddenly on manoeuvres and challenging his boss with whom he has been friends since he first stood to be an MP in 1983 and then served as Ken Livingstone’s deputy on the Greater London Council? I believe that he is setting out his stall to be the next Labour leader.
Up until now, it was assumed he had no interest in the job. He is known to have heart problems and has a reputation of being even further to the Left than Corbyn.
With Jeremy Corbyn (pictured) on a break in Romania, McDonnell has pounced. He has taken over as the main voice of Opposition and stolen the headlines
Indeed, notoriously, he once said he wished he could go back to the Eighties and ‘assassinate Thatcher’ and has never made any secret of his Marxist views. What’s more, McDonnell is taking full advantage of being a fluent media performer. There he is, holding court on Robert Peston’s ITV political programme every Wednesday night, it seems.
I am no admirer of McDonnell, but I admit that he pointedly presents himself as if he is an elderly vicar, trying to soothe viewers with his catchphrase ‘Everyone is agreed . . .’
Some of his radical policies go down well with voters who believe the greed and incompetence of utility firms and rail franchise companies justify Labour’s wish to re-nationalise great swathes of public services and bring to heel over-paid bankers.
McDonnell is helped, too, by the fact that although such a programme would cost billions of pounds and leave millions of pension savers out of pocket, Prime Minister Johnson has launched himself on a spending spree of not dissimilar proportions.
Scarcely a day passes without another big cheque being written, with Johnson estimated to have added £30 billion to the national deficit in the 16 days he’s been PM. He has also signalled large tax cuts into the bargain.
Meanwhile, McDonnell portrays himself as a man of fiscal rectitude despite having put the frighteners on businesses across the land by saying a Labour government would force firms with more than 250 employees to give 10 per cent of their equity to staff.
That said, it was Boris Johnson, not John McDonnell, the long-time admirer of Chairman Mao, who crudely said: ‘F*** business!’
An interesting sign of the times was seeing the value of the pound rise on news that Corbyn plans a vote of no confidence in the Government.
And that’s not all. The widespread fear of economic mayhem that might follow a No Deal Brexit and the way unelected No 10 apparatchiks advocate ripping up the rules that have served British politics so well for centuries to achieve Brexit risk adding to public unhappiness with the Tories.
No wonder John McDonnell felt justified this week testing what it feels like to sit on a throne.
But is Britain really ready for a prime minister — or a chancellor — who wrote for his Who’s Who entry that his interests include ‘generally fermenting [sic] the overthrow of capitalism’?
I don’t like beanfeasts beside the seaside
Britain’s annual party political conferences have turned in recent years into pale imitations of the hoopla-driven U.S. conventions which nominate presidential candidates.
Gone are the days of illuminating debates in seaside resorts where history gets made.
This year, Tory strategists are even considering the ultimate heresy of converting their autumn conference into a raucous Brexit rally. For the good of us all, these annual farces should be abandoned.
At this time of national emergency, MPs have a duty to be in Parliament rather than swilling champagne with corporate lobbyists at Tory and Labour Party conferences.
Leave it out Dominic Grieve!
Remainer-in-Chief Dominic Grieve triggered uproar by saying the Queen should sack Boris Johnson if he tries to cling on to power should he lose a no confidence vote. I understand Tory MP Grieve issued his ultimatum from Brittany.
There is a convention that MPs don’t make political interventions while out of the country.
A period of silence is in order from Grieve, who was awarded the Legion d’honneur, France’s highest accolade, which was created by Napoleon.
I hope that, in hindsight, Middle East Minister Dr Andrew Murrison realises that comments he made in the Commons about the Government’s ‘nuanced and complex’ policy of selling arms to the Saudis to kill civilians in Yemen were morally outrageous.
He also praised Saudi’s Crown Prince Mohammed yet failed to mention his links to the killing and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist and critic of the Saudi regime.
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