An award, including a Thomas Piketty tome with a “Kill the Cuts” T-shirt thrown in, for anyone who can fathom John McDonnell’s economic policy. The shadow chancellor has achieved a feat undreamt-of in the Corbyn Labour Party. His abrupt about-turn on whether or not he intended to match George Osborne’s plans to return to budget surplus united centrist foes such as Ben Bradshaw, who deemed Monday’s meeting “a f***ing shambles”, and the firebrand Left-winger John Mann, who said the leadership is running “two contradictory policy arguments, without a single discussion”.
Yet McDonnell is far from the first politician to execute a handbrake turn. William Hague presided over so many that Rory Bremner portrayed him as a deranged cabbie, forever slamming on the brakes to hare off in a new direction. The Coalition performed volte-faces on selling off forests, a major health bill, ditching GCSEs and tackling the influence of lobbyists. Tony Blair managed a U-turn twice on a referendum on Europe — once towards one and then against.
True, it is Olympic-level confusion to not know whether, as a figure touted by the leader as a “brilliant [future Chancellor]”, you want to eradicate the deficit or not. It is the entry-level qualification of the job.
To say you changed your mind because you went to Redcar and met aggrieved steelworkers does not entirely reassure. If a single trip up the east coast is enough to change the shadow chancellor’s mind on a key commitment, we are left to conclude that he might not be safe to let out of Westminster.
True, it is Olympic-level confusion to not know whether you want to eradicate the deficit or not
<p>Anne McElvoy</p>
Colleagues need to be prepared for slithering retreats. This is best done by preambles about “listening carefully”, “taking soundings” and pretty much every other delaying tactic which does not suggest that you were spooked because Nicola Sturgeon had come out against Osborne’s plan and you need Scottish seats back.
Diane Abbott says the change of heart is “a process story” — a brilliant new coinage. We can have “process stories” on matters ranging from abandoned diets to lost jobs or ditching partners. In political Newspeak, it means disguising a panicky volte-face as something gradual and considered.
If we disliked orthodox politicians for obfuscation, this lot seem more than up to traditional standards of evasion. The man himself says he changed “tactics, not policy”. Or, more eloquently put by the satirist Saki: “A little inaccuracy saves a ton of explanation”.
Those fulminating might take heart that U-turns matter outside the SW1 tent a lot less than they do inside, because civilians expect politicians to be weasels. But they do judge parties on the realism of their intentions, a sense of broader competence and, crucially, whether they are united or fractious. The bigger problem for revolutionary Labour is that it seems to relish splits as proof of moral purity.
If the pressure rises further, Team Corbyn might resort to the last elegant refuge of the U-turning scoundrel, namely the phrase attributed to John Maynard Keynes: “When the facts change, I change my mind.” Some say the great economist did not actually say this. Never mind — plenty of politicians have done so since. The facts did not change their minds. They did.
@annemcelvoy is senior editor at The Economist
