Boris Johnson would be foolish to underestimate Labour

In the next election, as in the last one, McDonnellism will prove a serious challenge to the Tories.

John McDonnell, as chancellor, confirmed that in government, he and Jeremy Corbyn would make a full frontal attack on 40 years of economic and industrial orthodoxy, the precepts that markets know best and that our prosperity depends on trusting the private sector.

During the first 30 years, this orthodoxy may have delivered relatively steady income growth for the economy as a whole. But over the full 40 years, we’ve seen the greatest shift in history between the share of national income that accrues to workers and what is taken by the owners and providers of capital.

And as a corollary, at the start of those four decades of the Thatcher and Blair consensus, the gap between rich and poor dramatically widened, and has never been reversed to any serious extent, while living standards for the majority have stagnated since the 2008 crash.