Diane abbott

Yesterday

4 Jul 2022
Steerpike
Steerpike
Diane Abbott’s baseless Boris blunder

Boris Johnson seems to be in enough bother without his opponents making unsubstantiated claims against him. But that’s exactly what Diane Abbott, the sexagenarian Stoke Newington MP, did yesterday when she appeared on yesterday’s episode of Broadcasting House, the BBC news review show. Abbott – who was ostensibly there to discuss allegations surrounding Chris Pincher – decided, er, to spout some of her own. The former shadow home secretary made claims instead about Boris Johnson when she was asked if a man sexually assaulting a woman would have been treated differently from Pincher allegedly groping two men. She replied that: 'It might be treated differently. But that's because Boris Johnson has been rumoured to be the one who likes assaulting women.

Diane Abbott’s baseless Boris blunder

Monday

30 May 2022
Steerpike
Steerpike
Is Diane Abbott against migration?

It's a strange time in British politics. Brexit signalled the ongoing political re-alignment that is underway. Red Wallers and blue shires united; old alliances are at an end. Still, Mr S is surprised to see a surprising new addition to the legions of Tories in parliament who are concerned about the ongoing levels of high migration to the UK.Step forward Diane Abbott, who today found herself in the unusual position of being criticised from the left of British politics for being too hostile to the free movement of people. Abbott of course distinguished herself during the Corbyn years as Shadow Home Secretary when she refused to answer questions about Labour's approach to illegal immigrants, among other issues.Yet now it seems Abbott is opposed to one form of migration – the legal kind, at least.

Is Diane Abbott against migration?

Tuesday

26 Apr 2022
Steerpike
Steerpike
Diane Abbott turns her guns on the Mail

Rayner-gate rumbles on into day three, with no sign yet that the press have bored of talking about themselves. The Deputy Labour leader was accused by an anonymous Tory MP in the Mail on Sunday of 'flashing' the Prime Minister at PMQs, prompting wall-to-wall criticism across every media outlet. Radio 4 led its 6 o'clock news programme with Speaker Hoyle's latest soundings: Angela Rayner herself starred on Lorraine today to talk about her upset at the coverage.   But now the Mail on Sunday has had the ultimate accolade afforded to it. For Diane Abbott, the former Labour shadow home secretary, has now issued one of her infamous tweets about the author of the MoS piece, political editor Glen Owen.  Such tweets have become a staple part of Westminster folklore: as much a part of the parliamentary furniture as Black Rod or the Speaker's chair.

Diane Abbott turns her guns on the Mail

Saturday

19 Feb 2022
Steerpike
Steerpike
Jeremy Corbyn sides with Russia (again)

Jeremy Corbyn may no longer be Labour leader but he's still parroting the Kremlin's lines. It seems like just yesterday the former Leader of the Opposition was accused of siding with Moscow over the Skripal poisonings, having suggested that Novichok samples from the Salisbury attack should be handed over to Russia. Undeterred by the opprobrium he received in 2018, the Islington North MP is one of the usual suspects arguing that the current crisis in Ukraine is the result of – shock, horror! – those dastardly democracies in the West. For Corbyn is part of the gang of hard-left MPs who have signed up to a ludicrously one-sided 'open letter' by the ironically-named Stop the War coalition. All the old favourites are there: John McDonnell, Richard Burgon, Diane Abbott, Claudia Webbe.

Jeremy Corbyn sides with Russia (again)

Monday

14 Feb 2022
Brendan O’Neill
Brendan O’Neill
I stand with Diane Abbott

Not for the first time in her political career, Diane Abbott is getting a lot of flak online. She’s being trolled, heckled and denounced as an enemy of the United Kingdom. Only this time Ms Abbott is being hauled over the coals not for saying something silly, but for saying something sensible. Something true. Something fundamentally correct. Namely, that Nato bears a great deal of responsibility for the current crisis in Ukraine. Browsing the Abbott-bashing headlines you could be forgiven for thinking she had upped sticks, flown to Moscow, and sworn lifelong allegiance to Vladimir Putin. ‘Diane Abbott backs Russia!’, says the Express. In its regular feature on mad things said by leftists, published under the banner ‘Loony Left’, Guido Fawkes grips its pearls over Abbott’s apparently bonkers belief that ‘Nato [is] to blame for Ukraine crisis’.

I stand with Diane Abbott

Monday

27 Dec 2021
Steerpike
Steerpike
Diane Abbott’s Zero Covid crusade

With Christmas over, the turkey consumed and Maughamtide been and gone, the eyes of an anxious nation have turned once more to No.10. Boris Johnson deferred the re-introduction of restrictions last week but met with Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance today to discuss the latest Covid data. Fortunately, current indications are that no such measures will be announced in England at the current time. But while most will celebrate the absence of yet more interminable mask-wearing, social distancing and indoor mixing bans, there are some who crave a Covid curb comeback. Among them include the zealots of the ‘Zero Covid Coalition’, whose activities are partly run out of the taxpayer-funded office of Diane Abbott. The former shadow Home Secretary has again demonstrated her much-fabled feel for public sentiment by backing a group which just eight days ago called for a circuit-breaker and the cancellation of Christmas.

Diane Abbott’s Zero Covid crusade

Sunday

6 Sep 2020
Matthew Taylor
Sunday shows round-up: This week is ‘moment of reckoning’ for EU trade deal

Dominic Raab - This week is 'the moment of reckoning' for EU deal The Sunday interview shows return this week to general fanfare across the nation... The first government guest to join Sophy Ridge was the Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who was asked about the prospect of the UK reaching a satisfactory trade deal with the EU by the end of the year. James Forsyth has written this week about how Downing Street puts the likelihood of a deal down to 30 to 40 per cent, but Raab professed a greater optimism that an agreement could be reached, citing the thorny subject of fisheries as one of the few remaining 'bones of contention': Foreign Secretary @DominicRaab responds to reports Downing Street thought there was a 30-40% chance of a Brexit trade deal, insisting a deal is "there for the taking" and "this week is the moment of reckoning".

Sunday shows round-up: This week is ‘moment of reckoning’ for EU trade deal

Wednesday

1 May 2019
Steerpike
Steerpike
Liz Truss shows solidarity with Diane Abbott

Liz Truss and Diane Abbott are an unlikely pair. One is a champion of free markets while the other is a true Corbynista. However, of late the Chief Treasury to the Secretary has managed to find common cause with the shadow home secretary. Speaking at a Freer think tank event last night with fellow freedom lovers James Cleverly and Steve Baker in the audience, Truss spoke of the importance of fighting over-interference of the state into people's daily lives – and that includes Abbott's recent decision to disobey London transport rules and drink an M&S mojito on the overground: 'When we try to micromanage people’s lives, we take away the freedoms that are crucial for them to feel in control. Freedom is the ability to make choices that others disapprove of.

Liz Truss shows solidarity with Diane Abbott

Thursday

14 Mar 2019
Dot Wordsworth
Coloured

‘The term coloured, is an outdated, offensive and revealing choice of words,’ tweeted Diane Abbott last week in response to Amber Rudd having remarked on the radio with regard to verbal abuse: ‘And it’s worst of all if you’re a coloured woman. I know that Diane Abbott gets a huge amount of abuse, and I think that’s something we need to continue to call out.’ Rudd rapidly apologised: ‘Mortified at my clumsy language and sorry to Diane Abbott.’ It is funny to think that if Rudd had said woman of colour she’d have been immune to criticism. But she tripped over a shibboleth. The Oxford English Dictionary abides by strict neutrality over the use of language. It resists any role of prescription: you can say either lavatory or toilet for all it cares.

Coloured

Tuesday

22 Jan 2019
Rod Liddle
Rod Liddle
In defence of Diane Abbott

The question I had hoped to pose this week was this: “Do people dislike Diane Abbott because she is black and a woman, or because she is useless?” But then I worried that we would come to a fairly definitive conclusion a long time before my allotted 1,000 words had been used up. “The latter, I think,” is the response I have heard time and time again, both from Labour supporters and Tories. For the entire day before Abbott’s appearance on Question Time, in which she thinks she was treated badly on account of the colour of her skin and her gender, my wife had been bouncing around the house in a state of enormous excitement, looking forward to the car crash which would inevitably occur that evening on the TV. It always does with Diane.

In defence of Diane Abbott

Monday

30 Apr 2018
Steerpike
Steerpike
Watch: Diane Abbott dodges illegal immigrant questions

Amber Rudd’s resignation is something of a coup for Diane Abbott, who has spent the last week calling for the Home Secretary to go. But Abbott's disastrous interview on Good Morning Britain might well have cut Labour’s celebrations at Rudd’s departure somewhat short. The shadow home secretary was asked repeatedly what Labour’s policy on illegal immigration is. And six times, she refused to say: Piers Morgan: ‘…I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask the shadow home secretary, in light of this massive scandal, what Labour’s policy on illegal immigrants is. Do you think that they should be removed from the country, or should they be allowed to stay here?’ Diane Abbott: ‘We are…yes, but..what I can say to you is we are working on our immigration policy, obviously post-Brexit everyone has got to consider the immigration policy.

Watch: Diane Abbott dodges illegal immigrant questions

Friday

23 Mar 2018
Steerpike
Steerpike
Listen: Diane Abbott’s Brexit hypocrisy

This evening Owen Smith has been unceremoniously sacked by Jeremy Corbyn from the Labour front bench after he called for another EU referendum. However, given that the Labour frontbench aren't exactly known for sharing a coherent Brexit position, some are questioning how fair the move is. After all, when it coms to calling for second referendums, Diane Abbott actually beat Smith to it. Back in November, the Labour frontbencher was reported, by the Guardian, to have written to two constituents pledging she would argue in favour of a referendum on the final Brexit deal – a policy that had been ruled out by the party: ‘I will argue for the right of the electorate to vote on any deal that is finally agreed.’ Only unlike Smith, Abbott is still in post.

Listen: Diane Abbott’s Brexit hypocrisy

Thursday

22 Feb 2018
Steerpike
Steerpike
Diane Abbott makes another numbers blunder

Diane Abbott is no stranger to getting her numbers in a muddle, and it seems the shadow home secretary has now done it again. Abbott warned this week that some were using immigration as a euphemism for race, but Mr S was surprised by one passage in her speech. The Guardian reports that Abbott told those in the audience at King’s College London: ‘I remember Enoch Powell’s speech, I think I was in primary school, and I wasn’t following it in huge detail, but I do remember how I felt.’ Given that Abbott was born in 1953, and Powell’s famous speech was delivered in 1968 – making her at least 14 at the time – Mr S thinks it is unlikely Abbott was in primary school at the time…

Diane Abbott makes another numbers blunder

Friday

19 Jan 2018
Steerpike
Steerpike
Diane Abbott’s Brexit confusion – part II

Here we go again. For some time now Labour's Brexit confusion can be described as 'complicated' at best. Matters aren't helped by the fact that Labour shadow cabinet members often go on the airwaves and contradict each others – sometimes even themselves. This was evidenced last month took to the Andrew Marr show to claim that Labour had never supported a second referendum – despite writing to a constituent to say she would argue for the 'right of the electorate to vote on any deal that is finally agreed'. Now it seems Labour's ever-changing Brexit position is getting too much even for Abbott. In an interview with Prospect, the shadow home secretary attempts to explain her party's stance on the customs union – before turning to her aide to check she has got it right: 'I ask Abbott for clarity—but it is not forthcoming.

Diane Abbott’s Brexit confusion – part II

Sunday

17 Dec 2017
Matthew Taylor
Sunday shows round-up: Diane Abbott sounds public sector alarm

Diane Abbott - Public sector at risk if migration collapses The Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott has told Andrew Marr that British businesses and essential services such as the NHS require a certain level of migration from Europe after Brexit and that a 'collapse' in numbers could pose a serious risk to the UK economy. Abbott claimed that a Labour government would clamp down on bureaucracy with regard to EU migration and that she would implement 'fair rules' and 'reasonable management': https://youtu.be/WFuOPbJvEvQ AM: Do you think that the number of people coming here from the EU will go down after Brexit if you're in power? DA: You should talk to British business and the health service because they're very worried about a collapse in the number of EU migrants coming here.

Sunday shows round-up: Diane Abbott sounds public sector alarm

Wednesday

27 Sep 2017
Isabel Hardman
Isabel Hardman
Corbyn cannot just condemn the abuse of those he is friends with

Jeremy Corbyn was generous to the Shadow Cabinet in his conference speech, especially to Diane Abbott, who had a terrible election campaign personally, suffering from problems with her diabetes and horrendous racist and misogynist abuse. The Labour leader led a standing ovation to the Shadow Home Secretary, followed by a rendition of 'happy birthday'. He told the hall that 'the campaign by the Tories and their loyal media was nasty and personal. It fuelled abuse online and no one was the target of that more than Diane Abbott.' Let's just recall the abuse of Diane Abbott during the election campaign. She said she had been called a 'n***** bitch', sent rape and death threats and received 45 per cent of all abusive tweets sent to female MPs during the election campaign.

Corbyn cannot just condemn the abuse of those he is friends with

Wednesday

2 Aug 2017
Jake Wallis Simons
Jake Wallis Simons
Venezuela’s crisis exposes the true depravity of the hard-Left

Which British politician would be loopy enough to defend the Venezuelan regime as it guns down protesters and arrests opposition politicians? Need a clue? Didn’t think so. This week, Ken Livingstone – once an adviser to the late Hugo Chavez – said that the reason for the country’s woes was that Chavez ‘did not execute the establishment elite’ when he came to power. For good measure, he added: ‘America has got a long record of undermining any Left-wing government as well… it’s not all just down to the problems of the [Venezuelan] government.’ While reporting recently on the appalling collapse of that country, I found myself staring into the barrel of a gun held by a masked teenager, high on cannabis, in one of Caracas’ lawless suburbs.

Venezuela’s crisis exposes the true depravity of the hard-Left

Sunday

23 Jul 2017
Steerpike
Steerpike
Diane Abbott’s vanishing act

On Thursday, Diane Abbott came unstuck in an interview with ITV News after she failed to explain how Labour would pay for its policy to put 10,000 more bobbies on the beat. The shadow home secretary's confusion was particularly telling given that she struggled with the same policy during the general election campaign – with a car crash interview on LBC. Abbott has since said that it was the broadcaster who was at fault for daring to ask her to go into specifics on a party policy. But have the powers that be taken a different view? Mr S only asks after the line-up for Radio 4's Westminster Hour was changed last minute. On Friday, Abbott was scheduled to join: https://twitter.com/BBCWestminHour/status/888402271381442562 However, she was then removed from the line-up – with Barry Gardiner replacing her: https://twitter.

Diane Abbott’s vanishing act

Thursday

20 Jul 2017
Steerpike
Steerpike
Watch: Diane Abbott fails to do her sums, again

Here we go again. During the General Election campaign, Diane Abbott came under fire when it became apparent in an LBC interview that she had no idea how her party would pay for its policy of 10,000 extra police officers – at one point saying it would cost £300,000, working out at £30 an officer. So, surely the shadow home secretary has learnt her lesson? Apparently not. In an interview with ITV news on rising crime figures, Abbott came unstuck once again on the policy as she attempted to explain how Labour would pay for its plan for 10,000 extra officers: 'What we have is we would find the money to recruit the ten thousand police people by cutting the.... we would find the money because we would look at capital gains tax.

Watch: Diane Abbott fails to do her sums, again

Wednesday

7 Jun 2017
Katy Balls
Katy Balls
Labour’s treatment of Diane Abbott raises questions about Corbyn’s judgment

Last night, Diane Abbott appeared -- perhaps for the first time -- to have something in common with Philip Hammond. Weeks after Theresa May refused to confirm her Chancellor's job security post-election, Jeremy Corbyn declined to say Comrade Abbott would be Home Secretary in a Labour government. Given that his comments followed Abbott's disastrous interview on Sky News, and after she cancelled two scheduled media appearances (apparently due to ill health), many took it to be a sign that Abbott's time as shadow home secretary was running out. Today Labour have issued a statement announcing that Corbyn has asked Lyn Brown to stand in for Abbott as Shadow Home Secretary for the period of her ill health. Barry Gardiner has since said that Abbott has been diagnosed with a 'serious, long-term condition' -- urging her critics to show some humanity: 'I hope people will simply say "OK, fair dos, if that’s the reason she’s been under par, we should back off".

Labour’s treatment of Diane Abbott raises questions about Corbyn’s judgment

Tuesday

6 Jun 2017
Steerpike
Steerpike
Diane Abbott’s disappearing act

Last night, Diane Abbott used an appearance on Sky News to insist that she had not been sidelined by the Leader's Office in light of her recent interview performances. However, in that same interview she went on to generate more negative headlines when the shadow home secretary appeared to have little to no knowledge of the Lord Harris report on improving London’s terror preparedness. So, Mr S was curious to learn that today Abbott has mysteriously dropped out of a scheduled appearance on Woman's Hour – with Emily Thornberry being lined up to replace her. While one Labour source tells Steerpike that Abbott has been 'spoken to' following her disastrous interview last night, Mr S fears that today's absence signals the return of ‘the migraine’.

Diane Abbott’s disappearing act

Monday

5 Jun 2017
Steerpike
Steerpike
Watch: Diane Abbott’s disastrous turn on Sky News

With Theresa May on the back foot today over Tory cuts to police numbers, CCHQ can count their lucky stars that Diane Abbott has been doing the media rounds this evening. The shadow home secretary was interviewed by Dermot Murnaghan this evening on Labour's position on terrorism measures following Saturday's attack. However, Abbott soon hit a problem when Murnaghan asked her about the 2016 Lord Harris report on improving London’s terror preparedness. It soon became clear that Abbott was not familiar with its contents – not that she was willing to admit this: DA: I think we do need to revisit that report DM: Which part of it? DA: Well, I just think it's about preparedness and resilience DM: But he makes some very specific recommendations that haven't been acted on, do you know what they are? DA: Well, I mean he was talking about preparedness.

Watch: Diane Abbott’s disastrous turn on Sky News

Thursday

1 Jun 2017
Julie Burchill
Julie Burchill
Did Jeremy Corbyn forget to unlock Diane Abbott’s talent?

Reading Jeremy Corbyn’s latest election document on the perennially hot potato of race, it was hard to know whether to shudder or snigger. Hearing that only Corbyn ‘can be trusted to unlock the talent of black, Asian and Minority Ethnic people’, my dirty mind was irresistibly drawn to the story told in the recent biography of the Glorious Leader of how he ‘showed off’ a naked Diane Abbott to the rest of Chess Club - sorry, his comrades in the socialist struggle - way back in the street-fighting, free-loving 1970s. According to a helpful nark in Rosa Prince’s book Comrade Corbyn: 'One Sunday autumn morning...we were out leafleting. And for some reason he called four or five of us and said: 'Oh, we've got to go back to my flat and pick up some leaflets.

Did Jeremy Corbyn forget to unlock Diane Abbott’s talent?

Tuesday

30 May 2017
Sean O'Callaghan
The Labour movement must denounce Jeremy Corbyn for his IRA lies

The ongoing argument about Jeremy Corbyn’s support for the ‘armed struggle’ of the Provisional IRA is vacuous and circular. Very few people endorse every single action of any group they support, but Corbyn and his circle were always there to lend their support, particularly when the Provisionals were in difficulty. There are thousands of Labour supporters, in both islands, who were involved in this area over many years, and who know that Corbyn and a small group of extreme leftists in Britain made common cause with the most extreme violent nationalists in Ireland, in order to advance what they saw as revolutionary struggle. From the Socialist Workers Party to the two foot soldiers of Red Action who were convicted of the 1993 Harrods bomb, a bewildering array of fanatics found common cause in the cause of Ireland.

The Labour movement must denounce Jeremy Corbyn for his IRA lies

Sunday

28 May 2017
Steerpike
Steerpike
Watch: Diane Abbott’s hair-raising Andrew Marr interview

With Labour beginning to gain ground in the polls, the party will be keen to keep its momentum going in the final days of the campaign. So, whichever brain at Labour HQ decided it was a good idea to send Diane Abbott onto the Andrew Marr show has some explaining to do. Explaining her credentials to take on one of the great offices of state come June 9, the shadow home secretary said she was confident she was up to the job as she had spent time in the Home Office as a graduate trainee. When Marr moved onto Abbott's questionable views on the IRA, she came up with an even more novel answer. Comparing her words of support for the IRA to her decision to have an afro, Abbott said her views -- like her hair -- have changed: AM: Jeremy Corbyn got into some trouble in his Andrew Neil interview when he said he had not met the IRA and he was then photographed with lots of people from the IRA.

Watch: Diane Abbott’s hair-raising Andrew Marr interview

Thursday

25 May 2017
Rachel Johnson
Diary - 25 May 2017

The chances of my 20-year-old student son being at an Ariana Grande concert on a Monday night were, my head told me, zero. But as I watched ambulances converge on the arena, my maternal heart was in my mouth. Oliver had just been to the premier league darts at the venue (like me, there is no sport my son doesn’t enjoy watching). I called. No answer. I sent a text. ‘Don’t go near Manchester Arena — explosion.’ Then another one. ‘Let me know you’re OK.’ He was. But those teenagers, all those girls. Eight years old. The nation weeps for other people’s children. The day I went Yellow Tory and joined the Lib Dems, I got a two-word text from David Davis, the Brexit secretary. ‘Lib Dem?’ My two-word text back: ‘For now.

Diary - 25 May 2017

Thursday

4 May 2017
Hugo Rifkind
Hugo Rifkind
Labour’s election strategy – vote for us and watch us lose

The crapness of Corbyn’s Labour is a phenomenon. It fascinates me. Frankly, it does my head in. For there is a theory, you see, that Corbyn’s Labour isn’t really crap at all. That it is all a conspiracy. That journalists such as me, who I suspect are ‘neoliberal’ or something, merely construct a narrative demonising it as such. Where politicians match our prejudices, this theory goes, we give them enormous leeway and spring to their defence. When they don’t, we supposedly deem them ‘mad’ or ‘radical’ or, yes, ‘crap’, in a spirit of sheer defensiveness. It’s a neat theory, this, and very occasionally I even find myself wondering if it might be true. But then I hear something like Diane Abbott’s interview with Nick Ferrari on London’s LBC radio last Tuesday, and I realise it definitely isn’t.

Labour’s election strategy – vote for us and watch us lose