John McDonnell has denied that Labour MPs got bored during his Autumn Statement speech - saying they were busy tweeting his words of wisdom.
The shadow chancellor defended himself after embarrassing pictures showed dozens of his colleagues staring at the phones while he gave the Opposition response to Philip Hammond.
He conceded that it did not “look good” but insisted that the pictures actually showed MPs passing on what he was saying via social media:
“This is not me boasting – if you looked at the MPs opposite me and those behind, I held their attention. Even though they’re tweeting, they’re tweeting about what I’m saying.”
Asked how he knew the MPs were concentrating on his remarks, he told ITV: “We were following the tweets.”
Mr McDonnell conceded: “It doesn’t look brilliant but that’s what they do now and they have to think themselves. The new style in Parliament at the moment is people are tweeting all the time. They’re doing a running commentary on what’s going on. It doesn’t look good, but that’s what happens.”
Mr McDonnell revealed he had set himself three rules following last year’s Autumn Statement when he gaffed by hurling a copy of Mao’s Little Red Book at George Osborne. The rules were to desist from ranting, telling jokes and no props.
