Jon Snow interviews John McDonnell
This is a rare moment. Two of the most rebellious people in the House of Commons have become the leader and the shadow chancellor of the Labour party.
And so Jon Snow described history being made. The Establishment doesn’t approve. This is a good time to bypass the press and go straight to primary sources, avoiding media distortion and misrepresentation. Hence linking to Snow’s full interview with McDonnell here.
For example, there was a lot of noise yesterday about Labour being a boys club and giving its top jobs to men. In fact, Corbyn’s cabinet is gender-balanced, with women edging past men.
John McDonnell said:
Well, we’ve now announced the shadow cabinet – it’s 16 women, 15 men. That’s a historic breakthrough. I’ve heard all this thing about ‘none of the four top jobs are occupied by women’ – Jeremy’s said quite clearly there’s no top jobs, that’s archaic, that’s like something from the nineteenth century when government only invaded places, or just had a police force or managed a small budget. Now the real jobs I think are about the delivery of services like health and education. And in all those key jobs there are women. So I think it’s a real breakthrough and sends a message out that not only have we fulfilled our promise but I think we’ll have better government as a result.