Though he was some miles away, the spirit of Bridgemas must have felt very real for George Osborne on 25th November, when the Shadow Chancellor gave him a present surely beyond his wildest dreams – quoting from Mao’s little red book at the despatch box.

Although a potentially compelling argument lies behind McDonnell’s stunt – the unhealthy reliance of Osborne’s plans, including for nuclear security, on China – to do this when the party’s leadership is already tainted by association with the far left is quite simply beyond parody. For as long as Corbyn and McDonnell remain, they can be sure that the Tories will play that clip of the Shadow Chancellor quoting Mao time after time until we are more sick of it than those four words ‘long’, ‘term’, ‘economic’, and ‘plan’.

Much like the Thatcherite legacy of the ‘nasty party’ soubriquet, it is hard to see how more moderate successors will be able to with any ease shake off the perception – fair or otherwise – that Labour is the party of the hardest, most deluded fringes of the left.

Why McDonnell felt that this would be an effective way of putting his message across to the public might forever be a mystery. Perhaps joking about the tyrannies of past is a way of trying to come to terms with them. Regardless, it was a shockingly bad idea.

More’s the pity, because there is a great deal requiring substantive and clear debate in this, the first Autumn Statement of a majority Conservative Government for 19 years. Of course the task for McDonnell, to respond off the cuff to Osborne’s ‘rabbit out of the hat’ surprises, was formidable, and to suggest that his speech lacked substance would be a misrepresentation.

But the audience of media-driven public opinion to which he needs to play is not always fair; he should realise that by now. In many respects McDonnell struggled because this statement was, as UKIP MP Douglas Carswell noted, very much Blairite – the ideological tradition which Corbynites struggle to tackle even within their own party. An increase on stamp duty for buy-to-let properties, a complete U-turn on those controversial tax-credit changes, more money for foreign aid, the Arts Council, and for UK Sport. The Daily Mail’s front page accusing him of ‘ducking’ cuts will do Osborne no harm in his quest to win over disaffected Labour supporters.

Evidently, though, this is not the end of austerity. The IFS has warned that 2.6 million working families will be left £1,600 a year worse off by welfare cuts; police chiefs’ warnings that they would have “significant” difficulty responding to a Paris style attack without military support have gone unheeded; sixth forms which are already under great pressure face a real terms cut in funding. Yet in spite of all this, our national debt will only stop growing in 2019-20.

There is a very serious debate to be had about where the axe should fall, but in the public consciousness at least, Labour doesn’t seem to be a part of it. Osborne, master of spin, newly-established champion of women’s charities, has been allowed to present his party as the sole moderates relatively unchallenged.

Only time will tell if Osborne hasn’t been a little too clever for his own good, however. Revised tax forecasts by the OBR which gave him an extra £27 billion to play with funded those headline giveaways, but forecasts can change – as we know from his promises on the deficit. Perhaps even more fundamentally, it is hard to see the biggest real terms rise in the state pension for 15 years as any more than an open attempt to buy the support of the group which may be most easily relied upon to vote.

If disenchanted students and younger working age people manage to channel their opposition to this gross inter-generational injustice through a more credible figure than Corbyn, the party Osborne hopes to lead before long will be in trouble.

This was not a manifestly ‘good’ or ‘bad’ autumn statement, because those are exactly the terms in which the government does not wish it to be seen; this is small ‘c’ conservatism in action – a fairly middle of the road, non-ideological response – intended to give off the air of competence Labour lacks.

For now, at least, the politics of spin are winning out. If it is left to the Daily Mail to call Osborne out on allowing national debt to head over £1.5 trillion later this year, and John McDonnell to challenge him on cutting spending on education to pay for more generous pensions, we cannot hope to benefit from the fruitful clash of plausible alternatives which politics should be about.

It seems that the Tories’ new watchword, ‘security’, is enough. It’s going to be a bleak winter if all the government needs to do to be better than the opposition is not quote Mao.

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