Corbyn eyed McDonnell like he was a doberman
BACK in the city of Liverpool where he was born, John McDonnell was in his element. Our setting was an arts and dance venue called The Invisible Wind Factory. Located between the Albert and Huskisson Docks, there was certainly a chill wind blowing off the Mersey yesterday. Brrr. I believe it was what Liverpudlian women term a ‘two pairs of tights’ Thursday.
Jeremy Corbyn had made the trip from London to introduce his ‘close friend,’ as he described McDonnell. A strange phrase, considering that they may be long-standing comrades but there is no detectable intimacy between them.
The best on- stage banter they could muster was some ribbing from McDonnell about his beloved Liverpool FC beating Corbyn’s Arsenal last week. He said the ten-goal game ‘wasn’t good for my heart.’
Merseyside was a long way from the Turkish kebab houses of North Islington – a fact which may have explained Corbyn’s hesitancy. There was a self- consciousness even, like a supply teacher unsure how his new classroom would take to him.
But then it’s not just brainpower that Corbyn lacks compared to his more cerebral shadow chancellor. It’s also authenticity.
Being McDonnell’s childhood turf, the 400- strong crowd were very much his people. ‘It’s good to be home,’ he expounded, his voice barely getting above a whisper.
His father, he told them, had been a docker. He said he’ll always remember the hook permanently affixed to his dad’s belt and which was used to haul bales on to the wharf. His Irish Catholic family were economic migrants, he stressed, like many in his audience. ‘And boy, did they work.’ In unison, heads nodded in agreement.
McDonnell could have played this nostalgic violin all day – pausing only to shake Labour’s magic money tree.
Remarkable, isn’t it, what bounteous fruit those branches can suddenly produce when there’s a general election to be won.
A £150billion ‘social transformation fund’; £250billion for a ‘green transformation fund’; free university tuition fees. My goodness. To paraphrase the First World War veteran and US Senator Everett Dirksen: Much more of this and pretty soon we’re going to be talking real money.
I’ve witnessed McDonnell previously employ his considerable charms on a very different crowd, trying to allay the fears of City financiers about a Labour government. His technique is usually a beguiling, under-stated tone. Yesterday,
he preferred to be angry. He bemoaned the North-West’s degeneration through neglect, its lost jobs and communities ripped apart. There was, of course, a common denominator: it was the Tories wot done it. ‘You cannot trust them,’ he said repeatedly. ‘They think people like us are stupid.’
Oh yes, John McDonnell possesses charm when he feels like it. Buckets of the stuff. But there is menace, too, behind that crooked smile, is there not?
If Corbyn represents the Soviet sickle that cuts down those he deems to have grown too tall in society, then McDonnell is the hard hammer that crosses it.
NOT
satisfied with merely cutting those who flourish down to size, he wants to smash them. There was talk of rebalancing society, of ‘bringing the private sector in line’ and ‘creating a society for everyone not just the elite.’ Pure sophistry. But the audience loved it.
Unlike Corbyn, he has a personal discipline which prevents him lashing out at dissenters.
This was despite several morsels of juicy bait tossed in front of him yesterday: former Labour MP Ian Austin urging people to vote Tory; Tom Watson’s bombshell walk-out; the fury of the Jewish Press over Labour anti-Semitism.
McDonnell just shook his head sorrowfully, like a preacher who’d lost one of his flock.
Watching this from the front, Corbyn peered over his spectacles and a hand kept stroking his chin whiskers. His face was illuminated part in fear, part in wonder, the way the proud owner of a doberman pinscher might look when observing their hound making a kill.
Like any keeper of vicious beasts, Corbyn should be mindful of what might happen should their creature ever decide to turn their aggression on them.