If one thing has been really noticeable over the summer, it’s that John McDonnell wants to be in power; he doesn’t want to be shadow anything for one minute longer than is necessary: his voice is marked by calm and his interventions, conciliation. Nothing demonstrates this more than dragging himself up the ultimate hill, though not necessarily to die there: the Mumsnet Q&A. Imagine Laura Kuenssberg with 1,000 heads, all of them angry, some of them breaking off to fight with each other, and you are somewhere near the horror.

If I’d been running the shadow chancellor’s show, I’d have said: answer them in order, go short. The reason politicians agree to webchats is that they can pick and choose, but all this does is identify the questions they don’t want to deal with, then spray them neon. So it was that instead of replying to the first question – “John, why have you shared a platform with people who seek the destruction of Israel?” – he scrolled down until he got to “how can Labour improve its media management?”

This latter question also related to the antisemitism row that consumed the summer coverage of Labour, but approached it so sympathetically (the media had established “a popular perception that Labour is antisemitic through and through, which is just not true”) that he should have fielded it last.

The antisemitism answers were anodyne – Labour will be more effective, build bridges, listen, learn lessons, form strong alliances. In other news, the media will always be biased because it’s controlled by the forces of capital (this was adjusted for the Mumsnetters, rather patronisingly I thought since they are no strangers to structuralist politics, to: “Elements of the media [are] owned by very wealthy people who oppose our policies.”) This “come on then, have it” style is not a new development, but mingled with the measured and rather soothing tone McDonnell now takes with everyone else, it’s looking more like a strategy: to the bosses, take a boss fight; to everyone else, a fireside chat.

The trans issue slipped through his fingers, in the sense that he declined to heave strongly one way or the other, no physical definitions of womanhood, no “trans rights are human rights” statement either. But sometimes water has a lot of truth in it: the issue won’t be resolved without the restoration of mutual respect; it’s gone past the point where a Solomon can hand down an answer.

The Mumsnetters were unimpressed by his Brexit replies, a medley of Labour’s stance since its 2017 manifesto, with all the awkward jumps and disconnections that make people prefer an actual song: Labour accepts the referendum result; Labour will apply its six tests and vote against any deal that doesn’t meet them; Labour will push for a general election (and in that case, negotiate its own withdrawal deal with the EU); failing an election, Labour will push for a people’s vote.

His audience was unconvinced. “How exactly will Brexit benefit the poor and vulnerable?” “Why do we have to respect the referendum?” But actually, each of these statements means something different as the context changes around them. Respecting the referendum could turn on a sixpence into respecting the fact that people had changed their minds. Starmer’s six tests are like Trotsky’s transformations: unmeetable. A Labour government couldn’t negotiate its own withdrawal without a second vote anyway, so it’s hard to see this as anything other than a pledge for a people’s vote, one way or another.

A couple of cute touches: asked how he felt at last year’s exit polls, he answered that he was more worried about the Conservative MP next to him, who was so pale that McDonnell thought he might need paramedics. He justified his employment of Jeremy Corbyn’s son Seb on the basis that it predated any parliamentary success he may have had by some years (weak, but quite funny: it can’t be nepotism if it lands you in a dead-end job).

He defended the progeny of Jacob Rees-Mogg, as any right-thinking person would. He praised Tony Blair’s government for Sure Start and the Good Friday Agreement which is, give or take working family tax credits, what most Blairites would say. He wants better postnatal care, better rape conviction rates, better treatment of women inside the party who come forward with abuse allegations, and reform around the edges of the trigger ballot process which doesn’t necessarily extend to mandatory reselection. He’s open to the idea of a universal basic income, and the rest of his programme is fully costed. His mother, by the grace of God, worked on an actual biscuit counter in BHS; he likes all the biscuits, so long as they are broken.

It was only revealing in the broadest sense: the accent was all on unity, reassurance and a cool head. A splenetic and righteous crowd left without what it came for – full-throated Remainia and a roll-back on the commitment to trans rights. But John McDonnell, to use his own word, survived.

• Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist