Katy Balls Katy Balls

John McDonnell’s Today interview shows the economy remains Labour’s Achilles heel

John McDonnell has busied himself today on the airwaves setting out Labour’s five key demands for the budget. His call for an end to austerity would mean pausing the roll-out of Universal Credit, ditching the public sector pay cap, more money into infrastructure, health, education, and local government along with a large-scale house-building programme.

All very well. Only the shadow chancellor’s Today programme interview took a turn for the worse when McDonnell tried to explain how his party would fund this. He appeared to concede this would mean borrowing – along with a mega-crackdown on tax avoidance and changes to corporation tax. But the most telling point in the interview came when he was asked about a comment he made at Labour conference when he said that his party was ‘wargaming’ and this included preparing for a ‘run on the pound’ if Labour were elected. It’s a comment that the Conservatives have latched onto ever since as an effective attack method – with Theresa May citing it as recently as Wednesday during PMQs.

Keen to correct himself, today the shadow chancellor attempted a change of tack.

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