“This is why to me, the vote on the fiscal charter is so important”.
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‘Embarrassing, embarrassing, embarrassing, embarrassing, embarrassing, yes of course it is.
Trust is the most valuable currency in politics, without it Labour can never return to government.
The charter would force future governments to run a budget surplus.
LONDON, United Kingdom-The leader of Britain’s Labour party suffered a rebellion on Wednesday in a parliamentary vote on the economy seen as a test of the left-wing Jeremy Corbyn’s ability to unite his lawmakers.
Ex-shadow chancellor Chris Leslie blasted his successor for sending “the wrong message to the public” by opposing Osborne’s fiscal charter, weeks after vowing to back it.
While Mr Corbyn had said he would not support it, key members of the shadow cabinet, including Mr Benn, the shadow justice secretary Lord Falconer and shadow first secretary of state Angela Eagle disagreed.
Following a stormy meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP), MPs angrily complained that their economic policy was in disarray and the party had “no credible leadership”.
“We have to come out of this debate in a way that will not allow them to brand us as deficit denier”, he added.
The Labour leader had previously said he would give MPs a free vote on the issue.
At Wednesday’s weekly Prime Minister’s Questions session, Mr Cameron urged Labour MPs disillusioned with Mr Corbyn and Mr McDonnell to vote with the government.
But Morning Star campaigns manager Steve Sweeney, one of the organisers of the People’s Assembly week of action against the Tories in Manchester, said: “Mr Crabb’s speech to conference shows that the Tories have been rattled by the demonstrations and protests that have taken place this week”.
Osborne is also going after centre-ground voters who may have been put off by Labour’s move to the left.
He said Osborne had been involved in a successful exercise in rewriting the record.
The biggest oddity about the Labour row on the economy is that all wings of the party agreed on the substance of John McDonnell’s position before his U-turn (Sam Coates writes).
But yesterday he had changed his mind after “watching the economic headwinds grow” over the past fortnight.
“I went to Redcar and I met steelworkers and I had families in tears about what’s happening to them as a result of the government failing to act, failing to intervene”, he said.
Matters got a little surreal as Mr McDonnell defended himself from ex-chancellor Ken Clarke by seeming to join in his attack on new Labour’s culpability for the credit bubble.
In a tetchy performance he became riled by Tory MPs questioning his judgment, having to apologise for rudeness after telling South East Cambridgeshire MP Lucy Frazer to “keep up” with the debate.
“The economic advisers certainly have a view that austerity isn’t the appropriate thing to be doing right now or in the past”.
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Mr McDonnell’s predecessor as shadow chancellor, Chris Leslie, said Labour needed a “clear and consistent” policy and said Mr McDonnell should instead table a rival motion and abstain on Mr Osborne’s plan.
