I assume that John McDonnell’s original “we’ll vote for it” take on the government’s Charter for Budget Responsibility was about trying to reassure people that Labour was taking a “mature” approach to public finance, etc. “We’re not irresponsible, profligate spenders, we’ll balance the books, we know what good housekeeping means” was the message. But he was wrong. Voting for the Charter would have meant voting for the consequences of the Charter under a Tory government – increasing austerity for the poor, increasing wealth for the rich. He was right to make a U-turn.

Unfortunately, I think he’s trying to look “responsible” again, this time on his approach to Tory cuts to working tax credits. He has written a letter to George Osborne asking him to please think again:

“What I’ve said to George Osborne is I think he should do a U-turn on this one … [I]f he does a U-turn in full to protect people in the tax-credit system I will not make political hay out of it – in fact I’ll support the government” (Channel 4 News, 25 October 2015).

But why would Osborne respond positively to a polite request to do a U-turn? The government isn’t interested in protecting vulnerable people. Its aim is to exploit them, to punish them for asking for more, and to demonise them. That’s why a single parent with two children, working at two jobs and working 16.5 hours a week will lose £16 a week when the cuts come into force; it’s why a single parent working 16 hours a week and earning £8,500 a year will lose £16 a week. Someone on Channel 4 News (I can’t remember who it was, somebody in the House of Lords opposing the policy) said that the government didn’t realise the consequences of its own policy. Get real, Lady Whoever-you-are, of course they realise the consequences of what they’re doing – that’s why they’re doing it.

So when John McDonnell told Andrew Marr on Sunday that the situation for people on working tax credit has become so serious that it’s above politics he was wrong. Cameron and Osborne will ridicule him for that. For them it’s politics, their politics, always has been. So he shouldn’t be offering to support the government in any deal based on a breakable, spin-doctored promise by the Tories to protect vulnerable people. Instead let’s have more of the John McDonnell who said, when the Welfare Bill made its first appearance in the Commons before Corbyn’s election and the then Labour “opposition” decided to abstain in the vote on it:

“I would swim through vomit to vote against this Bill – and, judging by some of the speeches I’ve heard so far, I may have to …”

If the pressure to make the offer to Osborne came in part from Labour’s old guard – the Blairites and Gawd-knows-what-ites who lost Labour the last election – then they need to be pulled into line. I know, in a way, it’s easy for me to say that. I don’t have to do it. But I saw some hope in Jeremy Corbyn’s election, especially by such a majority, and the appointment of John McDonnell as shadow Chancellor. And I blogged here that those of us who voted for Corbyn as supporters should join the Labour Party as members. So I’ve just been to my first Constituency Labour Party meeting for 30 years. And I shall continue to go, and do whatever I can do. But we need to be tough. We mustn’t make ourselves look naïve. And we mustn’t bother about proving how responsible we are when what is “responsible” and what is not is defined by the Tories.