Labour stumbles into Osborne’s trap

Labour backbenchers were in uproar over Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell's U-turn on the fiscal charter.

15-10-15-McDonnell-634

John McDonnell's U-turn took Labour backbenchers by surprise

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell "is a fan of straight-talking, honest politics", says Dan Hodges in The Daily Telegraph. "So he'll appreciate the following observation... John McDonnell is a dangerous left-wing ideological clown." A mere few weeks ago, at the Labour party conference and in a Guardian interview, McDonnell unilaterally said that Labour would back Chancellor George Osborne's fiscal charter, which would enshrine in law the requirement for the government to balance the books by 2018/2019, then run a budget surplus in "normal times".

Subscribe to MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/mw70aro6gl1676370748.jpg

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Sign up
Emily Hohler
Politics editor

Emily has worked as a journalist for more than thirty years and was formerly Assistant Editor of MoneyWeek, which she helped launch in 2000. Prior to this, she was Deputy Features Editor of The Times and a Commissioning Editor for The Independent on Sunday and The Daily Telegraph. She has written for most of the national newspapers including The Times, the Daily and Sunday Telegraph, The Evening Standard and The Daily Mail, She interviewed celebrities weekly for The Sunday Telegraph and wrote a regular column for The Evening Standard. As Political Editor of MoneyWeek, Emily has covered subjects from Brexit to the Gaza war.

Aside from her writing, Emily trained as Nutritional Therapist following her son's diagnosis with Type 1 diabetes in 2011 and now works as a practitioner for Nature Doc, offering one-to-one consultations and running workshops in Oxfordshire.