Diane abbott

Labour’s most shameful mug? It has to be Diane Abbott

This is an extract from Hugo Rifkind’s column in the next issue of The Spectator, out on Thursday: The Labour party has put its five core election pledges on mugs. No, I don’t know why. Presumably the idea is that you buy all five, and then, when your friends come around for tea, you each drink yours out of the one featuring your favourite. Yeah, I know. As if the sort of people who’d buy these mugs would have friends. There’s an odd fuss, though, about mug four, which says CONTROLS ON IMMIGRATION on it. Quite widely, this has been perceived as a gaffe, a betrayal, a slump into Faragism,

Policymakers must address high male suicide rates

It’s pretty tough to find good news in suicide statistics, but today’s figures for 2013 are particularly grim reading. The number of suicides increased from 2012, and the male suicide rate is now at its highest since 2001. The male rate of suicide has increased significantly since 2007, where it stood at 16.6 deaths per 100,000 population, to 19.0 deaths per 100,000 as the graph below shows: [datawrapper chart=”http://static.spectator.co.uk/yGG0M/index.html”] It used to be the case that young men were the most likely to kill themselves, but the highest suicide rate in the UK is now for men aged 45 to 59, at 25.1 deaths per 100,000. This is the highest for

Jim Murphy vs. Diane Abbott: will Miliband rein him in?

How far will Jim Murphy be allowed to go? Yesterday, the Scottish Labour leader proposed funding extra nurses through the Mansion Tax — something his colleagues south of the border aren’t particularly happy with. On the World at One today, the Hackney MP and potential London Mayoral candidate Diane Abbott attacked Murphy, and at first forgot his name, for ‘jumping the gun’ on the Mansion Tax. She argued London will be unduly hit by this policy and the super-wealthy will avoid it: ‘I’m very surprised John…Murphy’s making these boasts. I support the Mansion Tax in principle, I support the union and redistributive taxation but there are two big problems about

PMQs sketch: No poppy for Harman, Miliband on the attack, Cameron in transcendental-parrot mode

Was that a pop at Hattie? Ed Miliband began PMQs by evoking the centenary of the Great War. ‘We will all be wearing our poppies with particular pride this year,’ he said. And every eye ran along Labour’s front bench to count off the crimson blooms. Balls, poppy. Miliband poppy. Harman, poppy. No, wait. As you were. Harman, no poppy! Her chic, double-breasted grey jacket bore no tribute to the fallen. But I expect it’s a CND thing. All the same, Miliband should send her out to buy one. Tuppence ought to do it. The Labour leader needed a win today. Badly. His poll ratings have dipped to the same

Diane Abbott’s idiocy reaches new levels

On the evening of the Mark Duggan verdict, Diane Abbott MP tweeted the following: If the #duggan jury believe that he did not have a gun in his hand when he was shot, how can they find it was a lawful killing? #baffled — Diane Abbott MP (@HackneyAbbott) January 8, 2014   Well, Diane, your bafflement is because you weren’t inside the court room for three months listening to the evidence, were you, you idiot?  Does she think her tweet was helpful? Why does she not devote herself to tackling gun crime within the young black male community – or does she think that it is not a problem, a

A look at Labour’s London line-up

The open primary to choose the 2016 Labour candidate for London Mayor is a dot on horizon; but speculation is underway. Mr Steerpike has been reading the form. Tessa Jowell, the former Olympics minister and outgoing MP for Dulwich, had a busy festive period: turning on the waterworks and displaying signs of Tourettes in this Guardian interview. Here is what she said in response to a question about those pressmen who say that her estrangement from her husband David Mills during his run-in with the Italian courts was manufactured: ‘Frankly, you know, those arseholes are so fucking rancid that I just hope every morning they wake up and think: ‘I’m

Diane Abbott sacked as Miliband forges loyal frontbench team

Diane Abbott’s exit from the Labour frontbench has come later than the former Shadow Public Health Minister imagined. She had planned to resign over the Syria vote, only to find, rather to her dismay, that her party leadership had taken the position she supported in the end. Behind the scenes, the briefing is that she wasn’t sufficiently loyal: she has always been in her own party rather than pulling for the team. LabourList has a fantastic quote from a party source about Abbott ‘pissing all over the tents’, rather than ‘pissing out of the tent’ as had been hoped. She did get rather cross about Syria, but she also publicly

Rod Liddle

Ed Miliband has just sacked Britain’s most accomplished black politician, Diane Abbott

This might, on the face of it, seem an outrageous thing to say, but I think it’s a shame that Diane Abbott has been booted out of her role as Shadow Health Minister by Miliband II.  Much though she can rile with all that whining victim business, not to mention the occasional spurt of hilarious hypocrisy, she is one of Labour’s more formidable speakers and is easily the most accomplished black politician the country has, Chuka notwithstanding. She also, when not being hypocritical, tends to act out of principle, even if it is not usually a principle with which many of you lot would agree. Her policy instincts are usually

Audio: politicians mull intervening in Syria

Their holidays interrupted, MPs are trying to decide what they think about Syria as they return to Westminster for tomorrow’s House of Commons debate on military action. For those trying to make up their minds, and work out what everyone else thinks, Coffee House has compiled a helpful briefing of audio clips from across the political spectrum. Here’s David Cameron sounding like an eleven-year-old boy with a box of toy soldiers: listen to ‘Cameron: Use of chemical weapons ‘cannot stand’’ on Audioboo   Here’s the Labour front-bench being characteristically vague: listen to ‘Ed Miliband: Labour would consider supporting limited action in Syria’ on Audioboo listen to ‘Douglas Alexander: ‘Labour has never

Diane Abbott, darling of the reforming Right

Perhaps the Bilderberg conference has had a lasting effect on Parliament, after all. Today we saw what can only be a conspiracy between the Labour left and Michael Gove’s band of reforming right-wingers. As the Education Secretary unveiled his plans to reform GCSEs, he was accosted by Diane Abbott, rarely knowingly in agreement with much of what the Coalition is doing. But the Labour MP didn’t want to tell Gove he was wrong. She wanted to say he was right. She asked Gove whether he agreed that ‘an emphasis on rigorous qualifications and an emphasis on attaining core academic subjects is not, as is sometimes argued, contrary to the interests

Diane Abbott to turn Labour’s attention to a ‘crisis of masculinity’

Diane Abbott has been thinking long and hard of late about how Labour responds to the family. She offers the next instalment of her ideas in a speech to think tank Demos on Thursday, and will argue that rapid social and economic change has caused a ‘crisis of masculinity’ in Britain which manifests itself. Coffee House has been offered a preview of that speech, which marks a significant shift in the way Labour talks about the family. Abbott believes the Conservatives have occupied this debate for too long, and wants her party to make families and fathers a priority. As a single mother and a left-wing feminist, her intervention is

The Change4Life adverts have got it all wrong

Have you seen these Change4Life adverts the government has shoved on the television to stop fat chavs eating themselves to death? They suggest that people grate some carrot into their ‘spag bol’ and ‘eat some nuts and raisins’. Diane Abbott, for it is she, has rightly condemned the adverts as being patronising, insulting and a waste of money. She might have added that the people most at risk are not the sort of people who will be preparing, from scratch, a ‘spag bol’. They will, at best, be putting ready meals in the oven and at worst eating takeaways. The misapprehension is that people are not aware that what they

Parts of the Left are beginning to realise that they got the family wrong

One of the more interesting trends in British politics in the last few years has been sections of the left realising that the cultural changes of the 1960s and 70s too often chucked the baby out with the bathwater. Today, Diane Abbott has given an interview to Patrick Wintour in which she calls for more support for the family; arguing that stable families are the best way of preventing social breakdown. She also concedes that feminists were too ‘ambivalent’ about the family. Interestingly, Abbott also comes out in favour of school uniforms. She points out that they are a check against materialism and the designer label arms race. Now, I

Abbott quits abortion talks, but will her contributions be missed?

Diane Abbott has, the BBC reports, walked away from the all-party talks on abortion because of the government’s proposals on counselling services. But others involved in the talks claim that Labour’s public health spokeswoman was not a particularly active participant. Abbott, who is not always the easiest of people to work with, had already irritated some of those involved in these talks. In the first meeting she, allegedly, took the opportunity to rest her eyes. She then apparently turned up half an hour late for the second meeting before missing the third one completely. When I put these claims to Abbott’s office, they said that they doubted they were true but

Abbott’s Twitter troubles

That Diane Abbott tweet that Pete mentioned earlier (‘White people love playing divide and rule’) has made her the centre of attention this morning. She may have deleted it, and claimed that it has been ‘taken out of context’, but still the Labour Party has deemed it necessary to give her a public telling off for it. A spokesman said: ‘We disagree with Diane’s tweet. It is wrong to make sweeping generalisations about any race, creed, or culture. The Labour Party has always campaigned against such behaviour – and so has Diane Abbott.’ And Abbott herself has now apologised, although not exactly wholeheartedly: ‘I understand people have interpreted my comments

Every day, in every way, it’s getting worse for Ed Miliband

Unless one of Ed Miliband’s New Year’s resolutions was to ignore absolutely everything going on around him, I expect the Labour leader will be in a particularly glum mood this morning. And it’s not just that Maurice Glasman article — which has inspired the headline ‘Miliband’s former guru says he has “no strategy”’ on the front of today’s Guardian — either. It’s the, erm, questionable tweets from one of Miliband’s shadow ministerial team. It’s the LabourList poll that finds scant support, and much disapproval, for his leadership. It’s that John Rentoul column suggesting Yvette Cooper for the throne. It’s the Tory minister who said to Iain Martin that ‘Keeping Ed

Abbott caps Miliband’s defensive reshuffle

Those months of campaigning have finally paid off for Dianne Abbott. She has been made a Shadow Health Minister – which resembles a proper job. She was against the Blair-Milburn reforms in the NHS, regarding them as too pro-market – so let’s see if she keeps this position in opposition, thereby throwing more soil on the grave of New Labour. One can imagine the fear running down Andrew Lansley’s spine at this new team: John Healey and Abbott. It’s just baffling. In the bars at conference last week, I met many Tories who are increasingly worried at the pace and preparedness of Lansley’s proposed NHS reforms. But instead of marking

The unions deliver Ed Miliband to the throne

In the end, it was all quite exciting. After four months of soporific campaigning, after a speech by Gordon Brown, after tribute video upon tribute video, it all came down to an astonishingly tense round of results. And Ed Miliband edged out his brother by just over 1 percentage point overall, 50.6 to 49.4. It may have been the outcome that most punters expected coming into today – but it is not one that many would have predicted, with any confidence, back in May. Looking at the full voting split, a less flattering picture emerges. David Miliband actually won two of the three voting blocks: the MPs turned out 53-47

Ed Miliband elected Labour leader: live blog

1704, PH: We’ll leave it there, although we’ll have more reaction on Coffee House shortly. 1702, PH: I’ve already forgotten Miliband’s final line, although it involved the phrase “new generation”. Not a great speech, but some turnaround for him over the course of the contest. 1700, PH: Ooh, what does that mean for Ed Balls? Miliband says that, “I do believe we’ve got to reduce the deficit, but we’ve got to do more to help the country”. 1700, JF: It is what Labour MPs were calling the Doomsday scenario, Ed loses MPs and Members but wins thanks to massive support in the union section. Tonight there will be those who

It’s all over

The word here in Westminster is that the result of the Labour leadership contest has been certified. The significance of this is that it means the result is not close enough for the party officials to think that there is any need for a recount.