Labour leadership contender says remark made to union hustings was not meant to be taken seriously, as candidates debate future of party
Hélène Mulholland, Allegra Stratton and agencies
John McDonnell, one of the Labour leadership contenders, joked today that he wished he could go back in time to the 1980s and "assassinate Thatcher".
The MP for Hayes and Harlington, who was Ken Livingstone's deputy at the Greater London council in the early 1980s, insisted later that his comment about Lady Thatcher, the former Conservative prime minister, was made as a "joke and it went down as a joke".
McDonnell, a staunch leftwinger who has earned a reputation as one of the party's leading backbench rebels, made his comment at the Labour leadership hustings organised by the Labour-affiliated GMB union at its annual conference in Southport this afternoon.
He drew loud applause from the delegates when he talked about being on the receiving end of the policies of the former Tory prime minister's government when he worked for the National Union of Mineworkers and then the GLC.
Asked about his career prior to joining parliament, McDonnell said he had once been asked in a warm-up question on the BBC's Any Questions what if he would do if he found himself in an Ashes to Ashes situation – a reference to the BBC series that sees a modern-day policewoman waking up in the 1980s.
