A biography for John McDonnellhasn’t been written yet.
“In terms of mainstream media it's very difficult to break through if you're on the left.”
“I've always said the left needs to be ready for government.”
“To be effective in tackling poverty wages, a living wage has to be mandatory and basic trade union rights should be restored so workers can protect themselves from exploitative employers.”
“Going to university is, and should be, so much more than a mechanical process of grinding out a degree qualification for a pre-determined career path.”
“Changing leaders is pointless if the same policies are pursued.”
“New Labour has created a society increasingly oppressed by the worry of personal debt.”
“I sneaked into an Everton match once. I'm a Liverpool supporter, but Liverpool were away, Liverpool reserves weren't playing, there wasn't even a youth match, so I took my son into an Everton match. God help me. It wasn't me.”
“No cause is worth the loss of a child's life.”
“When governments fail us, what else can people do except take to direct action? When corporate power can so dominate government policy-making that whole communities are placed at risk, where else can people turn?”
“Out of the suffering of the 1930s, Britain built a civilising society, based in large part on the important lesson that unemployment is rarely the fault of individual malingering but the structural consequence of governments allowing the free market to rule our lives.”
“If we need more demand in the economy then protect people in work and raise the incomes of those on low incomes who need to spend, such as the low paid, pensioners and families with children.”
“From nuclear waste to Northern Rock and Metronet, risk is never transferred to the private sector - the state will always be forced to step in where there is a clear public interest.”
“Heathrow expansion is an object lesson in the dominance of a rapacious sector of industry over government decision-making.”
“Parties don't lose overnight, there is a gradual erosion of their base and electoral machine, which leads to sometimes cataclysmic defeat.”
“Conservatives claim they are 'one nation' Tories when they have actually been a government for the 1% who have undermined our economic interests through their greed.”
“If allowed, democracy does actually work.”
“A fairer system bases itself on actual outcomes - if you earn more you pay more, through progressive income tax.”
“If we are to depression-proof our economy we may need to pay more attention to the radical ideas and policies of those who witnessed the misery inflicted on so many during the 1930s.”
“The concept of loyalty to the leader is set firmly in the ethos of the Labour party.”
“If Marx was alive during the Stalinist period, he'd be first to be in the gulag.”