John McDonnell MP

'Corbyn gives top job to IRA sympathiser: New Shadow Chancellor who wanted to kill Margaret Thatcher to push through plans for taxes on middle-class families'

This is the British Daily Mail's headlines on Jeremy Corbyn's appointment of John McDonnell as 'shadow chancellor.' The Daily Mail lives up to its reputation.

Elsewhere McDonnell has been described by commentators as 'factional' to those who he disagrees with, as 'further left than Corbyn' (see 'Today', the BBC morning news programme, 14 September.) It seems that 'General Secretary' Corbyn has lined up his new Beria to frighten the enemy and begin the internal purges.

Anyone who has ever met or worked with John McDonnell, (not to mention the 27,000 voters he won in the 2015 election, representing 60% of the vote - a rise of 4% in his constituency, Hayes and Harlington) knows him as a kind, interested, supportive person, with clear ideas and a heartfelt sense of the injustice of our society.  But we wait (with trepidation?) as this bureaucratic monster gets to work cutting his way through the Labour Party MPs who fail to fall in love with 'big brother' Jeremy.

Good grief.