Tories should be terrified of John McDonnell

Once again, question marks surround Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. This is not new. While I was at 10 Downing Street, with the small but significant possibility of a sudden Corbyn departure, we spent some time exploring the electoral impact of who might come next. To work out who might put up the best fight and how best to counter them, I discussed potential candidates in focus groups, played videos to voters, and polled frontbenchers’ perceived attributes. The most consistently effective potential leader? Shadow chancellor, John McDonnell.

This may seem surprising – and as a Conservative it was a painful discovery. But he ‘focus grouped’ remarkably well. Voters described him as ‘strong’, that he ‘knows what he is doing’ and that he understands the economy. When I played interview footage, including to those who do not know who he is before the session, respondents nodded along, seeing him as confident and competent.

This competence matters. Jeremy Corbyn’s deep unpopularity is not because of his past and his links to unsavoury characters. His background did not register with voters in the 2017 general election, nor does it now.