John McDonnell launched another ‘review’ over the weekend, this time of the UK audit and accountancy sector. The Shadow Chancellor said:

“People are sick of losing their jobs, their pensions and their shareholding from corporate failures, but watching the culprits keep their large pay offs, pension pots and bonuses.  So I have asked Professor Prem Sikka to examine our regulatory system and bring forward proposals for reform to reinvigorate it.”

No mention of the good professor’s credentials. Must be your average independent expert, right…

Not exactly. Professor Sikka is a longstanding Corbynista campaigner who described accountants as “the pinstripe mafia” and argues accountancy firms “destroy societies”. He has made his support for Jezza’s economic platform, and Corbyn himself, widely known. Sikka has written for the Morning Star, hard left Labour Briefing and was on McDonnell’s now defunct Left Economics Advisory Panel. In 2015 he addressed the Morning Star How To Defeat Austerity conference. Best of all, he thinks collapsed Venezuela didn’t experience real socialism, because “state-capitalism dominated”. Marxist accountants aren’t common, McDonnell, of course, found one…