Red alert! Mao's in the house: QUENTIN LETTS sees mocking laughter greet the Shadow Chancellor as Little Red Book stunt backfires
Tory MPs were still feeling a touch queasy, trying to compute George Osborne’s iffy bag of tax steals and Centrist spending and wondering how he could balance the books, when Labour’s John McDonnell did the political equivalent of a Norman Wisdom pratfall.
At the despatch box he produced Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book and started to read from it.
It took about ten seconds for the Tories to start cheering. The old fool was actually quoting mass-murderer Mao in approval!
Quoting: At the despatch box Labour's John McDonnell produced mass-murderer Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book and started to read from it. It took about ten seconds for the Tories to start cheering
They and the underwhelming Osbo were saved.
Labour backbenchers’ faces turned a ghostly grey. Sticky smiles froze on their bloodless lips. They hoped they were hallucinating. But it was all too horribly real.
Mr McDonnell’s friends will say he was trying to be funny.
Two basic rules in self-preservation run thus: Never pass a loose-pinned hand grenade to a tremulous drunk; never entrust a joke to a politician who has no sense of humour.
Labour spin doctors ignored the latter yesterday, with dreadful results.
The Shadow Chancellor, who could not be mistaken for Jimmy Tarbuck even on a good day, was essaying a satirical dig at Mr Osborne for becoming too chummy with Chinese investors. He argued that Mr Osborne was nationalising our economy – but turning it over to the Chinese state.
‘To assist Comrade Osborne in his dealings with his new-found comrades, I have brought along Mao’s Little Red Book,’ announced Mr McDonnell, rolling his tongue in his cheek like any after-dinner speech bore.
Kamikaze witticism: The Shadow Chancellor tossed the red book (centre) to Mr Osborne in the Commons
He reached inside a pocket for his copy of Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-tung. It was well-thumbed.
Having quoted some passage in which Mao said ‘We must not pretend to know more than we do not know’, Mr McDonnell threw the book across the table towards Mr Osborne. ‘I thought it would come in handy for him,’ he said. All too true, that.
Mr Osborne quickly saw that Mr McDonnell’s kamikaze witticism would become a news story. He pretended to inspect the book and said: ‘Oh look! It’s his personal signed copy.’
Laughter. He then suggested that most of the Shadow Cabinet were being sent off for Maoist re-education. ‘More!’ screamed the Tories.
The Labour benches were silent. Keir Starmer looked so melancholy, I feared we might have tears before teatime.
Mr McDonnell could have made a hard-hitting speech attacking Mr Osborne’s climbdowns on tax-credits cuts and police budgets. He could have done a Henry Higgins ‘By Jove I think he’s got it’ riff and welcomed the Chancellor to the anti-austerity camp.
He could have celebrated the Chancellor’s greedy stamp duty grab and his interference in self-employed people’s small companies, while observing that no Labour Chancellor would have dared impose such rapacious, big-state measures. This Autumn Statement stank of socialism.
Laughter: Mr Osborne pretended to inspect the book and said: 'Oh look! It’s his personal signed copy'
We are almost back to Gordon Brown. Mr Osborne’s delivery had been feeble, the voice tinny, little. Is that really the voice of a future prime minister?
The world would laugh at him. More than once he used ‘trillions’ as he spoke of public spending. The argument about the immorality of debt – on which the Tories were elected – has seldom been more hesitantly expressed.
Where is Osborne’s resilience? His leadership? He spoke of his belief in ‘successful entrepreneurship’ while clobbering risk-taking consultants and Middle England house-buyers.
Perhaps he was spooked by the preening Labour peers who watched him from the gallery. Prominent among them was Lady Hollis, whose appallingly emotive speech in the Lords on tax credits will cost our country many, many billions for years to come.
How can a Chancellor defeated by such a ruinous non-entity even consider himself fit for No 10?
Boris Johnson watched from Michael Heseltine’s old position on the Tory awkward-squad bench.
Nick Clegg sat on the floor on the Opposition side. And Dame Margaret Beckett stood near the Speaker’s Chair in a 1960s purple shirt, purple jacket and purple loons. Very Emma Peel.
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