John McDonnell says he cried with joy when Jeremy Corbyn reached Labour leadership shortlist in 2015

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has admitted that he cries “all the time” and burst into tears when Jeremy Corbyn reached the Labour leadership shortlist in 2015.

The Labour MP, who describes himself as a “socialist”, also said he has a “soft” parenting style and gets most upset by his constituents’ stories.

Speaking to the Times Magazine, Mr McDonnell said he was “sentimental” adding: “I cry all the time.”

“I’ve cried in here,” he added in reference to his office. “We’ve people who have attempted to commit suicide because of loss of benefits.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and shadow chancellor John McDonnell at the Labour Party annual conference in 2017 (PA)

“You’d have a heart of stone if you weren’t moved by that.”

Mr McDonnell, who became an MP in 1997, has twice tried to become Labour leader, and failed to reach the shortlist on both occasions but his career shifted when Mr Corbyn became leader.

He told the newspaper: “I was on the back benches for years and was looking for a slow run into retirement.

“I had just had a heart attack; I thought I would quietly drift into retirement, sit at the back of a hall moaning that nobody ever listens to me.

Margaret Hodge described the Labour MP as a “Jekyll and Hyde” character. (PA)

“Then the opportunity came with Jeremy’s leadership election and we took it.”

Mr McDonnell, who grew up in Liverpool before his family moved to Great Yarmouth, said: “My dad taught me that you worked hard, you paid your way and you looked after each other – beyond the family, in the community too.

“The biggest thing my mum told me was ‘Always be Kind’.”

Despite this advice, Mr McDonnell quoted a call for Tory MP Esther McVey to be “lynched” and once said that Danny Alexander, a former Liberal Democrat cabinet minister, should be “garrotted”.

He claimed that both these comments were meant “as a joke”.

In 2003, he also suggested that the IRA should be honoured, declaring that it was the “bombs and bullets” that brought Britain to the negotiating table.

He has since apologised, saying that violence in Northern Ireland is “a door that’s now closed”.

Margaret Hodge, the veteran Labour MP who worked with Mr McDonnell in the 1980s also told the newspaper: “He’s very clever, incredibly hard-working and utterly ruthless.

“He’s a Jekyll and Hyde character – you never know whether you are going to get the bank manager or the revolutionary Trot. They’re both there.

“The problem is, you can’t predict what he’d be like in power.”