Leftie Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell tells finance chiefs he’s not a ‘raving extremist’

SHADOW Chancellor John McDonnell has told finance chiefs he wasn’t a “raving extremist about to nationalise their company”.

He insisted he had “no tricks up my sleeve” as he wooed business leaders at Bloomberg HQ – offering them a “seat at the table” in Labour policy talks.

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He also announced Clive Lewis had a new role in charge of “environmental economics”.

And he promised a “radical” and “intervening" government under Labour.

The Shadow Chancellor said he wanted a “new start” between the party and business.

But he warned bosses would not like all of his policies if Labour was in Government.

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Speaking at Labour’s Future of the Financial Sector, Mr McDonnell said the City had a role to play in the “transformative programme” he would seek to introduce if his party won the next election.

He told delegates: “The lesson of recent decades - including the global financial crisis - has been that a ‘hands off’ approach will not deliver the sustainable, broad-based growth which we need and expect.

“In the last few years, the prevailing economic orthodoxy has led to wages lower today than they were eight years ago, and the slowest decade of productivity growth since the Napoleonic Wars.

“Though there were clearly other factors, I think few people now dispute that actually these economic failures also contributed to the vote for Brexit in 2016, which we deeply regret.”

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Mr McDonnell said the financial sector would have a seat at the policy-making table under Labour, alongside manufacturers and trade unions.

He added: “What we are offering is a new start in the relationship between Labour and the finance sector.

“A relationship in which we recognise the potential of a transformed British financial system, at the leading edge of technology, fulfilling a clear, socially necessary role.”

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