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John McDonnell on throwing the Little Red Book at George Osborne: Das Kapital was too heavy

John McDonnell on throwing the Little Red Book at George Osborne: Das Kapital was too heavy

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell came to almost dominate the news cycle last week thanks to a stunt in which he literally threw Chairman Mao's 'Little Red Book' at George Osborne after the Autumn Statement.

The move was a gift for the Conservatives, who criticised it as crass politics.

The shadow chancellor was forced to maintain that it was a joke about encouraging Chinese investment in the UK and that he takes the millions of deaths under the collectivist policies of Maoist China seriously.

In a London Chamber of Commerce and Industry event in the City today, McDonnell was asked about the by now infamous throwing of Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung across the despatch box.

McDonnell responded with another communism joke, telling reporters that he would have prefered to take Karl Marx's Das Kapital, but it was too heavy.

We've said it before and we'll say it again: what a time to be alive.

More: The Daily Mail just published a bizarre imagining of life in Maoist Britain under 'Chairman Corbyn'

More: John McDonnell literally threw Mao's 'Little Red Book' at George Osborne

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