that little red book 'joke'

This is not nitpicking or press spin.

I am crying into my cocoa on a nightly basis right now! OK maybe I am making a McDonnell style joke there..

The DUP's Nigel Dodds made a scathing attack which summed up how many nonCorbynistas are viewing this front bench pairing. Now you may find it frustratingly fuddy duddy but everyone gets to vote, not just activists.

" but also doing his best to undermine Corbyn"

Tbh, Corbyn, McDonnell and Livingstone are doing it to themselves. Amateur student politics at best.

You lot are nit-picking. Think bigger picture please.

We aren't nit picking. Actually, it rather matters if your behaviour is so naïve that:

• people who aren't focused on politics don't hear your message
• people who have half an interest think you're a Mao supporter
• people who follow this stuff worry for your judgement.

You don't get to run a democratic country unless you convince enough people you're a safe and mature pair of hands. School boy errors like this don't help them do that.

I don't think Hilary Benn is the one to watch, although I suspect he will benefit a lot from Labour's shambles over Syria. Even if he is the one to make the challenge, it's not usually the one who wields the knife that gets the reward. It's Tom Watson who will have his eyes on the leadership prize, and he's the one with the Unions behind him.

David Cameron is cozying up to China, and sealing deals meaning we all pay double for our electricity. Not McDonnell.

You lot are nit-picking. Think bigger picture please.

Yes, I guess so, but also doing his best to undermine Corbyn.

I don't mind Corbyn and even McDonnell. My problem with McDonnell is he is weak and wants to ingratiate himself, and Corbyn is desperately weak with his "kinder" politics.

Corbyn shoukd sack the lot of them and replace them with new faces that the public are not sick of, all the toadies out and replaced with real leftwingers. Then he should oppose Cameron with real leftwing policies. He should whip all the Blairites and useful Shadow Cabinet toadies for the coming vote on bombing Isis so that the whole lot resign en masse and the public won't have to see their faces on TV any more. But weak, ingratiating McDonnell suggested on Any Questions last night that he was in favour of a free vote in the "new politics". He will let Labour down because he hasn't got the strength to act.

Blairite, Phil Collins, whom I don't like, was on Newsnight last night and was totally correct when he said that Corbyn has never done politics, all he has done is talk. Now he has to act, and he is not up to it. That is the tragedy of the Labour Party. The left has been voted in by members but they are far too weak to act and so Labour will return to the toadies who will vote with Cameron on the Welfare Bill or going to war or any other important issue and the public won't vote for them.

They said on Newsnight that there is talk of a coup against Corbyn by the toadies if UKIP win the Oldham by-election next Thursday. So Labour's short experment with a real left wing leader may be over quite soon unfortunately.

He is clearly not on team Corbyn but seemed to be doing his best given dire circumstances!

I don't like Hilary Benn, strikes me as a toady trying to undermine Corbyn.

The bad news is that Andrew Pierce, the senior Daily Mail jourmnalist/assistant editor, said on Sky News yesterday that he has a feeling that Benn may be on manoeuvres to try and become Labour leader. I think Labour will be finished if toadies lead it because the public won't like them and nor will all of the Labour party members who backed Corbyn so strongly. The Tories will like the toadies and so will the Blairites and the media, but I think it will be the end of Labour for good and a new breakaway party will have to be formed.

All credit to Hilary Benn: the only grown up among the Labour front bench.

On my vent about Diane Abbott has got lost in the ether. It's for the best..

McDonnell had a lot of points that he could have made but instead chose to score a point/ joke. He has appalling comic pace /timing but is too vain to have learned this well into middle age.

I wish he'd fuck off.

Ken Livingstone too. His Question Time performance was so arrogant.

'The whole mess is making Corbyn look weak'

Yes, that is what the media is doing as well as all the internal sabotage and coups within his own party.

The best one is Sky yesterday. They mentioned that Corbyn is isolated over the Isis bombing vote and while they said that they showed some video of him, looking like Steptoe, rough and bedraggled, wandering alone through the mean streets as if he was on his way to lay his last fiver on the horses. They didn't have to say anything, they only had to show the video. It is classic comedy, him and McDonnell, Steptoe and Son. It doesn't create an inspiring image for the people. But it might backfire if the people feel sorry for Corbyn, but I doubt it. People want leadership, not shambles.

'Surely he's not so dense that he couldn't have seen his point about Chinese investment backfiring'

He's weak and that clouds his judgement. It is the same when he continually says on TV in a smug, slow way "if the Chancellor changes, then we won't attack the position, we will work with him". He thinks he will get brownie points from the Tories for being reasonable, in reality they are laughing at him and still calling him a Maoist. He doesn't understand it.

I agree it was a very bad move. It was a minor thing of no real importance but as Dinosaurs and others have said, it shows that McDonnell has no political savvy at all. He didn't realise what the Tories would do with it. He doesn't understand the game.

The way I see it is he was sucking up to Osborne, trying to be self-deprecating and bursting the bubble of McDonnell being accused of being a communist by making light of it in an ironic jokey sense. He thought that Osborne would share in the laughs and everyone would then say that McDonnell is alright, he 's no communist.

But that shows a total lack of understanding that it is not a game, that the Tory press won't let him forget it, that they don't muck about and lark about, they have already said that Corbyn is a threat to security and they aren't going to let up.

What it really shows in McDonnell is weakness, an attempt to ingratiate himself by making a joke he thought would be shared. Unfortunately, it looks like McDonnell hasn't really got what it takes and is likely to let Labour voters down.

Political jokes often backfire. Liam Byrne's "no money left" note is a good example.

I might have to see if I can track down some coverage when I have a minute - I rarely manage to see stuff like that as I've a toddler at home so I just have radio in the background.

'The sooner someone steps up to challenge Corbyn for the leadership, the better.'

But who Majestic? Who is left to offer an alternative to the previous Tory-lite version of Labour?

Libraries, they were roaring with laughter and looking at each other like 'is this really happening??? This is just too good!' Totally sickening. Certainly no laughter on the Labour side apart from McDonnell, the total plum. Stony faces all round.

I didn't see Tom Watson's reaction - I was listening on the radio. That's something.

I did see on the news that the Tories looked like Christmas had come early. Cameron's face was a picture of "You're giving me this. REALLY!"

'If the new team genuinely liked it, they're fucked'

I really don't think they did. The Labour front bench, Tom Watson in particular, looked horrified. The Tory front bench on the other hand looked like they couldn't believe their luck. And Osborne's response was very good, much as it seriously pains me to say it

I desperately want Corbyn to turn things around and wipe the faces of that smug shower of scumbags but I'm starting to seriously despair. There's something particularly juvenile about McDonnell that I really can't get on with. Surely he's not so dense that he couldn't have seen his point about Chinese investment backfiring spectacularly when he started quoting Mao and throwing books across the desk? Dear god, why hand it to the Tories and the media on a plate like that? It makes me cringe.

And actually, none of this is fucking funny in the slightest. People lives and livelihoods were being affected by what was discussed yesterday, it was hardly the time for any sort of joking around. It just made them look like unhinged lightweights.

Having thought about it more, what's really annoyed me about it, is that it seems that McDonnell seemed to think what he should be trying to do was upset Osborne and 'win' the arguement, not talking to the normal public and/or challenging Osborne's spending plans in terms that would help people watching understand the difference between the parties. I thought the point of Corbynism was to move away from 'Westminster point scoring'. Seems not.

They haven't moved beyond point scoring at all. They've done that old shitty trick of claiming they want to move beyond point scoring. The tampon tax thing was a total case in point. Cynical and nasty.

I am really disappointed. I'm a lefty. I hoped it might be genuine.