Labour's shadow chancellor is going to spend all day telling telling people he doesn't support mass starvation

Labour Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell astonished the House of Commons yesterday when he held up and read from Chairman Mao's Little Red Book while responding to Chancellor George Osborne's Autumn Statement.

McDonnell was trying to make a point about the Conservative Government selling off British assets to China, but he is now being forced to repeatedly condemn Mao.

It is estimated that tens of millions of people died, many of starvation, as a result of Mao's policies when he governed China as Chairman of the Communist Party. The Little Red Book contains a selection of Mao's quotes and was compulsory reading for Chinese citizens when he was in power. It should have been obvious to McDonnell that it would be very risky for a left-wing politician to quote from Mao, even lightheartedly.

As shadow chancellor, McDonnell is lined up to make lots of media appearances so that he can hold Osborne's budget Statement to account. It's not going well so far, as he keeps being asked to explain his stunt with the Little Red Book. Predictably enough, on BBC News last night, McDonnell was forced to condemn the death of millions under Mao.

And this morning on BBC's Today Programme, McDonnell should have been trying to set the political agenda for the day, but again he had to defend his Little Red Book stunt. He told the programme that he was trying to make a serious point in a "flamboyant and jocular way" and that he thought he had been successful in getting the issue of selling off British assets to China onto the agenda.

"I don't support Mao, of course not," he was forced to say.

He did the same thing on Sky News.

McDonnell had a valid point to make - Britain's economic relationship with China is sometimes embarrassing because it ignores the regime's human rights abuses - but all that was lost. It simply looked like McDonnell was comfortable quoting Mao.

And Osborne is loving every moment of it. When he appeared on the Today Programme a few minutes after McDonnell, he was able to joke when asked about the Little Red Book that McDonnell thrown to him after quoting from it, "I always think it's important to know what your political opponents are thinking."

McDonnell's deputy, Seema Malhotra, said on Newsnight last night that she hadn't even been asked by McDonnell whether the Little Red Book stunt was a good idea. She looked just as confused about it as everybody else: