Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell is facing new questions after emails came to light showing his office misled a journalist in an attempt to cover up his employment of a hard-left trade unionist.
On Tuesday Heat Street revealed that McDonnell is under investigation by the parliamentary standards commissioner for failing to declare within parliament’s 28-day limit that self-styled “radical economist” James Meadway was working in his parliamentary office while the TSSA union paid £30,000 of his salary.
Now Heat Street has obtained a series of internal emails sent by key Labour Party figures which shine a powerful light on the workings of McDonnell’s office and leave him with a lot of explaining to do.
Scroll down to see the emails in full
Back in May a reporter from The Times published an article questioning the extent of Meadway’s involvement in McDonnell’s office.
At the time, McDonnell’s spokesman, James Mills, tried to close down the story by telling the newspaper: “Dr James Meadway is a respected economist who has worked at the Treasury and taught at the University of Cambridge. He acts in an advisory role to the Labour Party, which adheres to all the necessary rules.”
However, the emails, all of which are published below, blow a hole in Mills’s story.
They show that, far from being a mere advisor to the Labour Party, Meadway was at the centre of McDonnell’s operation and had been since at least October 2015.
He attended weekly shadow cabinet Treasury team meetings and policy and researchers’ meetings; he was also copied into scores of shadow Treasury team emails; and he apparently had a desk, computer and telephone in McDonnell’s parliamentary office, where he is understood to have worked full time.
Not only that, but in providing The Times with a quote calling Meadway just an advisor, Mills defied the instructions of Labour Party general secretary Iain McNicol:
The emails show that when the quote for The Times was being prepared, McNicol expressed his unease because he knew Meadway did not work for the Labour Party and he also knew Meadway’s salary, which was being paid by the TSSA, had not been registered, thus breaking parliamentary rules.
McNicol warned Mills: “The quote is incorrect. James [Meadway] has not been seconded to the Labour Party. The quote cannot go out. We have not registered this as a donation.”
Nonetheless, McNicol was ignored and the misleading quote went out anyway.
Having originally tried to claim Meadway was not his employee but a Labour adviser, last month McDonnell admitted the truth by declaring Meadway’s secondment to his office in a parliamentary register.
That has not stopped the parliamentary commissioner, Kathryn Hudson, wanting to get to the bottom of the matter. As well as examining why James Mills – acting on behalf of John McDonnell – misled a journalist, she is likely to want a full explanation as to what Meadway’s duties were and why McDonnell was so sensitive about the public learning the truth of his secret TSSA-funded employee.
As to why McDonnell was so reluctant for the public to know he had a TSSA union figure working for him, it could be that he feared living up to his own reputation as a hard-left anti-capitalist.
The TSSA union has been behind some of this summer’s railway strikes and has close personal, political and financial links to McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn.
Its £96,000 general secretary, Manuel Cortes, is understood to be the partner of Katy Clark, Corbyn’s political secretary. It also provides office space to Momentum, the pro-Corbyn group supporting his campaign in the Labour leadership contest. As well as Meadway working for McDonnell, the TSSA also provided £3,000 of office space to Corbyn last summer.
Meanwhile, it is also worth noting that James Mills, McDonnell’s spokesman, is currently working for Corbyn, potentially dragging the Labour leader into the inquiry.
Mills did not respond to requests for comment. Nobody answered the phone in McDonnell’s parliamentary office or responded to emails sent to his parliament account.
