The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell.

The shenanigans between Tom Watson, Unite and Momentum will not have helped, of course.

A huge part of the problem has nothing to do with Labour, though.

The simple fact is that elections aren’t won on the facts, but on what people are led to believe – and they are far-too-often led to believe whatever the Tory-owned mass media tell them.

So, for example, when the national debt was around 76 per cent of GDP in 2010, the Tory press told you it was a national crisis, Labour had no economic credibility and the only people who could restore the national balance sheet to health were Conservatives.

The Tories have been in office since 2010 and the national debt in 2015 was 89.2 per cent of GDP.

That’s right, the Conservatives have worsened the debt considerably – they always do.

What have you heard about it lately?

Well, if you were listening to Philip Hammond’s Budget speech, you’ll have heard him say the economy is ticking along just fine, thanks to Tory cuts. It’s complete and utter nonsense.

Labour always has to come in and clean up after the Tories have messed up the nation’s finances. Tories like to put the public sector into debt because it means the money goes into the hands of the richest private businesspeople.

But you don’t get to hear that. Your Tory-run mass media don’t tell you the facts – they feed you an illusion propagated by the Party.

It’s like a magic trick – sleight of hand. They haven’t improved anything – they’ve just distracted your attention.

Perhaps we should refer to them by a more appropriate title, then – the same title given to the kind of people who perform those magic tricks:

Illusionists.

The Labour party could take another two years to rebuild its credibility with the electorate, the shadow chancellor as said.

John McDonnell told the i newspaper that the media had not given his party a “fair hearing” but that it would get its message over by “word of mouth”.

He blamed the economic crash of 2007 for the party’s woes and said he had been punished for being in power at the time.

“Right across Europe, whoever was in power then was blamed for that economic crash, and Labour has never recovered.

“We have been consistently about 20 points behind in economic credibility in the polls since then.”

Mr McDonnell, who is a longtime ally of party leader Jeremy Corbyn, admitted that the party had made no progress in turning around voters’ view of it since the general election.

Source: Labour could take two years to recover credibility with voters, John McDonnell says

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