Webchat with John McDonnell, Shadow Chancellor, Friday 6 December at 12 midday

[AnnaCMumsnet]

We’re very pleased to announce a webchat with the Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, this Friday 6 December at 12 midday.

John has been Labour MP for Hayes and Harlington since 1997. Born in Liverpool, he studied at night school while working before going to university. He went on to work as a union official and in local government at the GLC and at Camden Council. He campaigned for Jeremy Corbyn to win the Labour leadership in 2015 and has been Shadow Chancellor since then.

Labour’s economic plans have proved a talking point during this election; the manifesto includes plans for free nationalised broadband services, increases in NHS spending, an increase in the minimum wage, freezing the state pension age at 66, and a ‘Green New Deal’. John has said the plans will tackle rising living costs; the IFS has said that Labour’s spending plans don’t add up (it says the same about the Conservatives).

Labour’s pledge to compensate WASPI women with an average £15k payout has caused a huge amount of conversation on our sister site Gransnet, so we’ll be taking questions from GN on that (and other topics) too.

Please do join the chat on Friday at midday, or if you can’t make it, leave a question here in advance. Please note John won’t be able to do the full hour because his time is pretty over-committed but we will detain him as long as we can!

As always, please remember our webchat guidelines - one question per user, follow-ups only if there’s time and most questions have been answered, and please keep it civil. Also if one topic is overwhelmingly dominating a discussion with a guest, mods might request that people don't continue to post what's effectively the same question or point. (We will be taking action on this, including suspending the accounts of MNers who continue to heckle after we've posted to ask people to stop, so please take note.) Rest assured we will ALWAYS let the guest know that it's an area of concern to multiple users and will encourage them to engage with those questions.

Thanks

[DowntownAbby]

Will you be displaying your IRA support plaque in No.11 if you get the keys?

[flowerycurtain]

I'm a farmer.

Please explain your land tax plans to me.

Also like other the EqA.

[XingMing]

Mr McDonnell,

After the three of the most divisive years of politics of my life, and I am 63, how would you propose to heal the wounds in our society? Please don't say you will fund this and that: we are small business people, with eight families depending on us to make enough money to pay their rent or mortgages and feed their children. We care about health and education too for all of them, but having worked for 35 years to create a business, modestly successful, we are near retirement, and the Labour party's current policies are frightening.

[SouthWestmom]

Hi

I'm really tired of the idea that single high income households are somehow the elite. The Tories had a lot of criticism around removing child benefit from HR tax payers but leaving it for a household with eg £80k coming in,
What will you be doing to include families with one high earner in the 'many' when families with two parents on £50k bring home more, can claim full CB and are not to be taxed more punitively under Labour?

[crankysaurus]

Hello John

Could you please say why I should vote Labour over the Greens with respect to environmental policies? (Please assume I'll be voting on policies, not tactical voting or for any individual politicians).

[GeordieTerf]

Hi, thanks for coming on.

As an MP, what had been your proudest achievement to date?

(My main concern as a voter is women’s rights, but since there are already several questions on that (and Mumsnet have asked for no more), i have asked something else.)

[GlassOfPort]

Hi John,
if you were living in a very tight Con/LibDem marginal (let's say Dominic Raab's seat), what would you be voting?

[Cismyfatarse1]

What is the Labour Party's position on Scottish independence. Will they uphold the will of the majority, who voted no, or are they going to allow a second referendum to appease the SNP? If so, why?

[Hefzi]

As one Marxist economist to another, a solidarity fist bump for coming to speak to us.

Could you possibly explain to us Labour policy for decreasing the exploitation of the developing world? As you will be aware, the current EU trade and tariff agreements actively disincentiveise the developing world from investing in and creating eg factories to add value to their raw materials, because of the swingeing protectionist tariffs on such value-added imports to the EU from those regions.

How will your party address this iniquity, and bring an end to such neo-colonial practices demanded by our agreements with our European partners?

[Hereismyreply]

If the Tories win the election and end up negotiating a free trade deal with the US, what are the key things that you think US healthcare providers/pharmaceutical companies will be lobbying for as part of that deal?

[Walkingdeadfangirl]

Hello John,

I would like to know, why are you planning on giving very wealthy women born in 1955 tens of thousands of pounds. But you are giving minimum wage working class women like me, born in 1956, NOTHING.

You claim to be for the many but it sounds like you are the party for the rich and will hammer the working class.

In the past I have voted for Blair but its very unlikely I would ever vote Labour under Corbyn (I just cant afford to).

Thank you.

[noblegiraffe]

Hi John,

Given Labour’s education plans to scrap reception baseline assessments, KS1 and KS2 SATs and Ofsted and replace them with softer alternatives, how will this not inevitably lead to a decline in school standards?

[ElusiveOrangeTwirl]

Hi John

Jeremy is someone who has being consistent with his politics for years and has always worked to serve the many and not the few. Why do you think he is such a divisive character, despite this?

[ChocolateOrangeIsAFruit]

Hello John

Will you be abolishing my sons private (special needs) school?

[KingBobra]

Hi John,

I'm floating between Labour and Lib Dem. Struggling to muster enthusiasm for either, for a variety of reasons, though some have been touched on in previous questions above. Leaflets through the door from both parties have both been focused around "don't let the Conservatives win". Assuming I was never going to vote Conservative anyway, why should I vote Labour?

[lonelyplanetmum]

Thank you for doing this chat (and not avoiding debate like the PM who not only avoided Andrew Neil but his own hustings!).

One of the things that riles me most in the Brexit debacle is the misrepresented talk of sovereignty and the enormous public misunderstanding of the EUs limited remit in all member states.

Westminster and other countries governments always had control over most matters for example: fiscal policy, health (NHS), education, elderly/social care, benefits, pensions,policing,
succession, probate, planning, defence, crime, housing, planning, transport, marriage & divorce,electoral policy etc.etc.

The consensual delegation of some minimal workers’ and consumer and environmental matters (with a veto) in return for trade was never the huge sacrifice it was made out to be. With the benefit of hindsight, do you think Labour could have done more to educate voters on this issue?

(From a lifelong faithful Labour voter who was alienated by your stance on Brexit.)

[WorkingAsHardAsICan]

Hello John

In many ways we have similar backgrounds, I grew up in one of the poorest cities in the UK, I left my comprehensive school at 16 and worked as I didn't want my family to have to fund me through A levels on their pensions. I got qualifications to go to university at the local night school. I moved to the South of England after university to get a job and have worked every since. I was the first person in my family to go to university and now work long hours and have a salary which fairly high.

I feel looking at the Labour manifesto as if you now think that someone like me as on the outside just because I might earn a certain amount of money - "the rich" or "the few", whereas actually I am trying to contribute to society and not be reliant on Government. I have tried to stand on my own two feet since I was a teenager.

Is Labour for someone like me? As at the moment, I feel as though your policies look at people like me as a problem.

[Tanith]

Hi John,

How can we combat disinformation online? Are you satisfied with the current funding rules for political parties?

[derxa]

I'm a farmer. Please explain your land tax plans to me.
This. Do you consider me the enemy Mr McDonnell?

[Trexical]

What strategies do you have to tackle the knife crime and violence epidemic that's becoming commonplace in the UK and predominantly committed by young men?

[puppypower1]

Your tax plans are not just for the "richest 5%" are they? Everyone will see prices and taxes rise as a result of your policies.
Here's what the IFS said about your tax plans:

"On the tax side the proposals in the Labour manifesto represent an enormous increase in the amounts they want to raise from corporation tax. If their proposals did raise the sums they suggest then we would be raising more in corporation tax, as a fraction of national income, than any other country in the G7, and more than almost anywhere else in the OECD. This would clearly come with substantial risks. The truth is of course that in the end corporation tax is paid by workers, customers or shareholders so would affect many in the population. In the end, it is unlikely that one could raise the sums suggested by Labour from the tax policies they set out. If you want to transform the scale and scope of the state then you need to be clear that the tax increases required to do that will need to be widely shared rather than pretending that everything can be paid for by companies and the rich.

Stuart Adam, a senior research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said: “Labour claims its measures would raise £80 billion in 2023–24, with most of this coming from increasing taxes on companies and their shareholders. This would imply the UK raising more in corporation tax than any other G7 country. The biggest tax rise is an increase in corporation tax rates, which is unlikely to bring in as much revenue as Labour hopes, at least in the longer term. Increases in corporation tax would affect far more than the very rich: much of the burden would ultimately be felt by employees and customers.”

In our business we will make people redundant as a result of your business tax rises and we will have to increase prices in order to maintain a viable business. Why can't you be honest with people?

[Cookerybookaddict]

Following on from the question raised by @puppypower1, I would like to know how you're planning on replacing all the income you receive from the banking industry once it relocates large chunks of business to Frankfurt, Singapore and Geneva? How are you going to fund the NHS on such a profoundly anti-business manifesto? Does your manifesto take account of capital flight - I can't see that it does. Are you simply going to max out the "Corbyn credit card" leaving my children and grandchildren to pay back your debts for many years to come?

[JohnMcDonnell]

test

[JohnMcDonnell]

Hello

It's cold here and I apologise to our Mumsnet colleagues for being in a cold drafty hall in Hayes (where the sun usually shines!)