IT was a curious sight. John McDonnell, the Marxist firebrand, wearing a tie and a sober suit, portraying himself as a boring yet responsible bank manager.
We were warned beforehand that his speech would be dull, dull, dull. But the democratic socialists in the audience whooped and whistled in all the right places. as if this was John the Baptist preparing the way for Tuesday’s appearance of Labour’s new messiah.
The new Shadow Chancellor began by making it clear there would be no jokes; the one about wanting to assassinate Margaret Thatcher had, he acknowledged, got him into a spot of bother. Although, it’s a fair bet any repetition would have gone down well with the comrades in the conference hall.
With the slogan “straight-talking; honest politics” emblazoned behind him, Red John set off on a lecture about how the “new politics” would work, challenging the neo-liberal orthodoxy.
Declarations about ending austerity and the pay gap caused thunderclaps of applause. “The Tories don’t represent one nation; they represent the one per cent,” declared Honest John in a neat one-liner.
He insisted the Corbynites were not deficit-deniers; they would only do things in a different way ie targeting the rich, tax avoiding magnates rather than the poor, welfare-dependent masses.
Then came a passage that got the comrades shouting with delight when the Deputy Chief Comrade attacked the SNP for being anti-austerity lite, claiming Labour was the real Syriza deal when it came to opposing draconian public spending cuts and those SNP switchers should “come home to Labour”.
Another button was pressed when the Shadow Chancellor hit out at the multinationals like Amazon and Google, which failed to pay their fair share of taxes.
Honest John insisted, yes, there would be cuts but these would be cuts to the “corporate welfare system” ie taxpayers subsidies to bosses who failed to create promised, companies which paid poverty wages and landlords who refused to repair properties.
He said he had to watch his language when he heard George Osborne rant about JC’s plan for renationalising the railways when the Chancellor was in Beijing trying to sell off any UK silver he could to the Chinese state.
When Mr McD talked about reviewing those pillars of neo-liberal society, the Bank of England and HMRC, there was a flurry of comradely clapping as if, at long last, the Establishment was about to get its comeuppance.
Mr McD ended by berating his political opponents for using lazy sloganising but, of course, went on to use a plethora of slogans himself and ended with a single word – “solidarity”.
The only thing missing was the clenched fist salute. No doubt, that will come tomorrow when Che Corbyn gives his conference address wearing a red beret.
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