As Labour’s new shadow City Minister, Richard Burgon will be hoping to prove that his party isn’t as anti-business as they were seen to be in the last election. Alas, his interview with Cathy Newman on Channel 4 news last night will have done little to help his cause.
Burgon — who was one of the MPs to nominate Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour leadership election — struggled during the interview in which he tried to defend John McDonnell over his fiscal charter U-turn:
‘If people don’t change their view when further evidence comes before them then they’ve got some tough questions to answer. Labour is an anti-austerity party. This is a political stunt by George Osborne.’
Newman then went on to quiz Burgon on when Labour would eliminate the deficit while remaining an anti-austerity party. Unfortunately it became clear that Burgon was numerically challenged when it came to the deficit:
CN: You say you’re not a deficit denier so what is the deficit going to be this year?
RB: Well… err… I’m not an economic… I’m not somebody who is going to put a figure in a crystal ball of what exactly the deficit is going to be in a year
CN: Well you don’t need a crystal ball, it’s in the government’s figures
RB: I think it will be higher than the government says it’s going to be
Things then took a turn for the worse when Burgon was asked about his new shadow cabinet role.
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