John McDonnell is taking back control

Over the past few weeks, rumours have swirled in Westminster that the Labour party has acquired a new leader — that John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, has almost completed a long, stealthy campaign having stolen more and more power from his beleaguered and exhausted boss. While there has been no announcement, plenty in the party believe that there certainly has been regime change: Corbyn in office, but McDonnell in power.

While Corbyn has always seemed like an eccentric grandad who potters about in his allotment, there is something steely and not altogether comforting about McDonnell. Even though he gives broadcast interviews from his sitting room, which looks like the backdrop to a Werther’s Original ad, and even though his soft and sorrowful voice makes him sound like an uncle giving the eulogy at the funeral of a much-loved family pet, McDonnell can’t quite hide a faint air of menace. When he recently mused about what might happen ‘If Jeremy got hit by the No. 57 bus’, this well-known political phrase didn’t sound quite as hypothetical as it normally does.

The Werther’s Original Marxist https://t.co/FBwMpf6XML https://t.co/2AZhBMZr6p

— Isabel Hardman (@IsabelHardman) October 18, 2019

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It would take an unusually menacing twist for the shadow chancellor to turn on his ‘best friend’ of several decades. But the struggle takes many forms. Last week Corbyn’s chief of staff, Karie Murphy, and his political secretary, Amy Jackson, were moved out of his parliamentary office and sent to work at Labour headquarters instead. A gentle purge of Corbyn’s wider office may soon be under way, with more than 30 staff summoned to informal interviews with Sir Bob Kerslake, a former head of the civil service (and McDonnell ally). This is supposedly part of a review into ‘management systems’ — a review that’s likely to find that the Labour HQ has too many chiefs, so more senior heads need to roll.