Tories will be rubbing their hands this morning as Rachel Reeves doubles down on Labour’s commitment to “borrowing to invest”, for example £28 billion in “green investment”, and funding everything else with tax. Borrowing is taxation deferred…

Reeves reminds Guido of John McDonnell’s 2017 claim that new borrowing would “pay for itself” and that the “enormous social and financial returns” would make it all worthwhile. When Labour was roundly bashed for its trigger-happy commitments then, the cost of borrowing was at an all-time low. Interest rates are now at 5.25% and Reeves can only promise to delay her flagship borrowing project for so long – the gilt market is already showing nerves at Labour plans. Big government, big spending is in Labour’s DNA. “Iron fiscal rules” can be transient once a party gets into power…

Labour’s descent into gutter politics is still causing splash-back. On Peston last night, John McDonnell didn’t hold back over the Sunak attacks. The former Shadow Chancellor argued “you never go for the person in this individual way… it’s unacceptable”, before appealing to Nandy personally – “you’re better than this”.  This didn’t go down well with Lisa, who hit back that she would “not take lessons from you about civility in politics”. McDonnell has never apologised for endorsing the lynching Esther McVey….

McDonnell then restated his case:

“You don’t do this. This is not Labour politics. We’re better than this”.

Apparently not…

John McDonnell asks Simon Case why he hasn’t initiated probe into claims Boris tried appointing Carrie to a Foreign Office job:

Simon Case: “Any investigation under the ministerial code can only be authorised by the PM”.
William Wragg: “Is he not keen?”

If Tory MPs weren’t comfortable with Comrade Sunak’s £21 billion cost of living package announced last week, they should check out the bizarre through-the-looking-glass situation on Twitter this morning, as John McDonnell defends the Tory chancellor’s spending plans against attacks from Labour that it might cause greater inflation. Last night The Guardian was briefed that Labour is urging the OBR to assess the impact of Rishi’s spending splurge. It’s a fair criticism, just not from Labour who a week ago were hailing Rishinomics as proof they are “winning the battle of ideas”…

Owen Jones then led the charge pointing out how this opposition for the sake of opposition by Rachel Reeves paints Labour into a massive corner on spending. Jones tweeted, “This is reheated George Osborne-ism, not progressive politics.” Following in his steps this morning was Jeremy Corbyn’s former policy chief Andrew Fisher, who responded to the Guardian article with “WTAF?!”, while pointing out the Shadow Treasury Secretary, who wrote to the OBR, himself said Labour “welcomes [Rishi’s] announcements”. Tying himself into a knot the Scouts would be proud of…

Now John McDonnell – a man who, as the PM often reminds the Commons, was sacked by Ken Livingstone for being too left wing – has also leapt to the chancellor’s defence. McDonnell tweets:

If this is part of the Labour attempt to demonstrate it’s a more responsible manager of public spending, what happens if the OBR says Sunak’s deal is inflationary? Whatever the focus groups are saying, are we seriously going to attack the Tories for spending more on the poor? https://t.co/Mxhm2BxpjM

— John McDonnell MP (@johnmcdonnellMP) May 31, 2022

Looks like both the Tories and Labour don’t have a clue what either they, or their opponents, stand for anymore…

John McDonnell may be just hours away from losing the Labour whip, as Sir Keir is reportedly preparing to finally boot him from the party if he makes a scheduled appearance at a Stop The War rally this evening. A rally that’s also set to feature the (inevitable) appearance of the independent MP for Islington North, who admittedly has nothing left to lose by now…

It follows Sir Keir’s stern warning to his MPs on Monday that any member who draws a “false equivalence” between NATO and Russia would immediately be shown the door. Last week, Starmer also demanded all 11 Labour MPs who’d signed Stop the War’s letter withdraw their names for the sake of unifying the party in favour of NATO. Eventually, they all complied. Corbyn’s name is still on there, obviously.

McDonnell has so far refused to comment on whether he’s still planning to show up to the rally this evening. According to HuffPo, a Labour source said:

“If he goes, he’ll lose the whip. Any Labour MPs who speak at anything that is anti-Nato from now on are likely to be out.”

The event starts at 6.30 pm. The clock’s ticking…

UPDATE: McDonnell has told LabourList he’s pulling out of the event:

“I have seen all the speculation about my attendance at tonight’s Stop the War meeting and reports of threats if I do. My response is that people are dying on the streets of Ukrainian cities. This is not the time to be distracted by political arguments here […] Nothing is more important at this time. Nothing should distract us from that. So I won’t feed into that distraction by going tonight.”

Poor Jeremy’s been left high and dry…

John McDonnell’s on Starmer’s reshuffle…

“People still don’t know what Labour stands for… there’s no point in being The Beatles if you don’t have songs”