John McDonnell MP, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, speaking after Treasury Questions, said:

“Only eight weeks ago the George Osborne promised an “economic recovery for all, felt in all parts of our nation”, but on the day that the IMF has echoed Labour’s warnings about the global economy and called for the government to increase investment spending, the Chancellor decides to demean his office with school boy jokes about mental health.

“If the Chancellor could at least appreciate how angry families of steelworkers in south Wales are, knowing that when bankers’ bonuses were threatened, he immediately shot across to Brussels with an army of lawyers to defend them, and he’ll jump into a helicopter for a Tory fundraiser, but it’s taken him four months to lift a finger for steelworkers’ jobs.

“The truth is that we have a Chancellor who has woken up late to the crisis in the steel industry, tax credit cuts, police cuts, and the problems in the global economy. But when it came to the banks he was wide awake to all their concerns.

“George Osborne has proved today at Treasury Questions, what we all suspected, that he’s really just the Bankers’ Chancellor.

19th January 2016 labour press team