Diane Abbott

Diane Abbott MP
Member of Parliament for Hackney North and Stoke Newington
Incumbent
Assumed office 11 June 1987
Preceded by	Ernest Roberts
Majority	14,408 (31.0%)
Personal details
Born	(1953-09-27) 27 September 1953 Paddington, London, England
Political party	Labour
Spouse	Richard Thompson (divorced)
Children	1
Alma mater	Newnham College, Cambridge
Website	http://www.dianeabbott.org.uk/

Diane Julie Abbott (born 27 September 1953) is a British Labour politician, who has been the Member of Parliament for Hackney North and Stoke Newington since 1987, when she became the first black woman to be elected to the House of Commons. She remained the only black woman MP for ten years, until she was joined in the Commons by Oona King in 1997. She has always been considered to the left of "New Labour", and is a member of the Socialist Campaign Group. In 2008, she was named one of the ten most powerful black women in Britain and in May 2010, after Labour lost the 2010 general election, she entered the nomination phase of the contest to succeed Gordon Brown as Leader of the Labour Party.

Early life and career

Abbott was born to Jamaican immigrants, her father a welder and her mother a nurse. She went to Harrow County Grammar School for Girls and then to Newnham College, Cambridge, where she read history. At Cambridge, she was tutored by historian Simon Schama. After university she became an administration trainee at the Home Office (1976 to 1978), and then a Race Relations Officer at the National Council for Civil Liberties (1978 to 1980).

Journalism

Abbott was a researcher and reporter at Thames Television from 1980 to 1983 and then a researcher and reporter at the breakfast television company TV-am from 1983 to 1985. Abbott was a press officer at the Greater London Council under Ken Livingstone from 1985 to 1986 and Head of Press and Public Relations at Lambeth Council from 1986 to 1987.

Political career

Her career in politics began in 1982 when she was elected to Westminster City Council (for the Harrow Road ward) as one of the country's first black female councillors, serving there until 1986. In 1987 she was elected to the House of Commons, replacing the seventy five year old Ernest Roberts as MP for Hackney North & Stoke Newington. She became one of just four Members of Parliament from ethnic minorities, the others being Paul Boateng, Bernie Grant and Keith Vaz. Abbott is well known for campaigning on the issue of race, for example her first parliamentary speech covered what she saw as racism in British immigration policies. Abbott also campaigns on issues of black children and education, organising the annual London Schools and the Black Child conference and the London Schools and the Black Child Annual Awards to promote positive images of young black people.

Abbott also gave a widely acclaimed speech in defence of civil liberties, in the debate on 42 days detention (House of Commons 11 June 2008) as part of the Counter-Terrorism Bill 2008. The speech was described by the following speaker in the debate, David Davies MP, as "one of the finest speeches I have heard since being elected to the House of Commons". The speech won The Spectator magazine's 'Parliamentary Speech of the Year' award, with Abbott described by the editor of the Spectator, Matthew D'Ancona as: "a parliamentarian who, it was felt, had come into her own as an orator this year, speaking on a range of issues with fluency, passion and, above all, doughty independence". These two tributes are perhaps all the more remarkable in coming from political opponents of Abbott. It was also this work, in campaigning against the 42-day detention, that earned Abbott the Special Judges award at Liberty's Human Rights Awards. Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said: "In these dark times, where almost every day there is another mauling of the Human Rights Act, the dedication and hard work of these organisations and individuals is truly uplifting."

Diane Abbott announced on Radio 4's Today programme on 20 May 2010 her intention to stand in the Labour leadership contest. She complained that there was "little choice" between the other candidates, all white males. On 9 June, Abbott secured the 33 nominations necessary to appear on the Labour leadership ballot paper following the withdrawal of fellow left wing candidate John McDonnell.

Media work

She is a pundit alongside the former Conservative politician and media personality Michael Portillo on the BBC's weekly politics digest This Week. Abbott and Portillo have known each other since school, when they appeared in a joint school production of Romeo and Juliet (although not in the title roles), and Macbeth as Lady Macduff and Macduff respectively. Despite their opposing politics, they work well together on the programme, which has been described by Jonathan Dimbleby as a "love in" between the two.

Stance on private education

Her decision in 2003 to send her son to the private £10,000 a year City of London School, which she herself described as "indefensible" and "intellectually incoherent", caused controversy and was seen by some as hypocritical not least because she had previously criticised Tony Blair and Harriet Harman for sending their children to selective state schools. It later emerged that Abbott had applied to three private schools for her son.

Criticism of Finnish nurses

In 1996 Abbott was accused of racism when she suggested that "blonde, blue-eyed Finnish girls" in her local hospital in West London were unsuitable as nurses because they "may never have met a black person before". Abbott's comments were supported by Bernie Grant, a fellow black MP whose constituency, Tottenham, borders hers. "She is quite right," he said. "Bringing someone here from Finland who has never seen a black person before and expecting them to have some empathy with black people is nonsense." Conservative MP Ian Bruce stated that he had "never heard such racist rubbish from a Member of Parliament in recent years". Abbott was also accused of ignorance by the Anti-Racist Alliance executive member Marc Wadsworth, who is half-Finnish, pointed out that at that time the Miss Finland, Lola Odusoga, was black, of Nigerian and Finnish descent. "She's a black Finn like me," he said. Abbott apologized for her remarks and said her main priority was to ensure that her constituents received medical treatment from the very best people "irrespective of race".

Failure to declare earnings

In 2004 following a complaint made by Andrew Rosindell MP, Abbott was investigated by the Committee on Standards and Privileges regarding payment she had received from the BBC. They found she had failed to declare earnings £17,300 on the Register of Members Interests which had been received for appearances on the television programme This Week. The Committee upheld the complaint and forced Abbott to apologise to the House.

Personal life

Abbott married Richard Thompson, an architect, in 1991, they divorced in 1993; they have one son.

External links

• Diane Abbott MP official constituency website