John McDonnell, Labour's shadow chancellor of the Exchequer, declared Marxism a “force for change today” as he addressed the closing session of a conference in London marking Karl Marx’s 200th birthday on May 5.
McDonnell, a close comrade of Labour's socialist leader Jeremy Corbyn, received stormy applause for a speech in which he paid tribute to the revolutionary thinker and noted that public interest in his ideas had soared since the bankers’ crash of 2008.