Philip Hammond tried to take down Corbyn. It backfired badly

The Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond has had a real nightmare with his words in recent weeks.

During a television interview, earlier this week, Hammond referred to the European Union as "the enemy" and told them to "behave like grown-ups" during Brexit negotiations.

That poor choice of words was immediately criticised and Hammond offered an apology on Twitter, complete with the nifty hashtag #noenemieshere.

Even before that the 61-year-old had put his foot in it.

He had delivered a speech at the Conservative Party conference which was not received positively on social media.

Speaking to business leaders, Hammond failed to introduce any new economic policies and spent the majority of the speech attacking Labour and Jeremy Corbyn.

During his address in Manchester, Hammond claimed that Corbyn and John McDonnell, were "dinosaurs" and that Labour's policies would "wreck havoc" with Britain before further adding:

It’s a wicked and cynical business offering superficially simple solutions to complex challenges.

He also declared that Labour poses "an existentialist challenge to their economic model."

We're not politicians or economic experts but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that an opposing party would definitely pose a threat to another parties policy model, otherwise they would be an opposing party.

Corbyn, who recently spoke at the Co-Operative party conference, clearly realised this as well:

Philip Hammond says that Labour poses an 'existential challenge to our economic model' - Yes, we do.

I am not going to sit back when their economic model is seeing:

• homelessness double
• four million children in poverty
• over a million older people not getting the care they need

Their economic model is broken. It doesn’t work for most people. Even the International Monetary Fund thinks inequality and low taxes for the richest are harming the economy.

That’s why Labour is now the new mainstream, developing a new consensus of how to run an economy for the many not the few.

This new consensus will reward the real wealth creators - that means all of us. It will genuinely value people and communities - and invest in them. It will create an economy fit for the 21st Century with a state that’s not afraid to act when something goes wrong but, more importantly, also proactive to make sure things work in the first place.

Unlike Mr Hammond and the Conservatives I don’t think it’s acceptable that chief executives get 180 times the pay of their average worker. I don’t think it’s acceptable that when hospital A&Es are closing the government can fund another tax giveaway for big business. And I don’t think it’s right that landlords can be paid £10 billion a year in housing benefit without even the requirement that the home is fit for human habitation.

In other Corbyn related news, the Labour leader spoke at the Young Labour Youth Conference in Warwick on Saturday and did not rule out the potential nationalisation of Greggs, which we can all agree is a fantastic idea.

HT ITV News

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