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Diane Abbott LBC interview overshadows Labour policing pledge Labour defends Diane Abbott over stumbling interview
(about 5 hours later)
Labour’s pledge to recruit an extra 10,000 police officers has been overshadowed by a stumbling and error-strewn interview by Diane Abbott in which the shadow home secretary repeatedly struggled to explain how the promise would be funded. Diane Abbott will continue to be a key figurehead in Labour’s general election campaign, the party has indicated, despite a stumbling radio performance in which she struggled to explain how a pledge to hire 10,000 extra police officers would be funded.
In the interview with LBC’s Nick Ferrari on Tuesday, described by the Conservatives as “excruciating”, Abbott frequently paused, shuffled her papers and gave out the wrong figures. The shadow home secretary was tripped up by LBC host Nick Ferrari, who asked her on Tuesday morning how much the key law and order pledge would cost. She initially suggested the bill would be just £300,000, before repeatedly correcting herself.
When asked about her performance, the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, insisted he was not embarrassed by what many pundits called a “car crash” interview. Eventually, Abbott appeared to find the right page in her briefing notes, and gave the full costing for the policy at £298m a year by the end of the next parliament.
Abbott initially said that recruiting 10,000 officers would cost only £300,000. After an apology and some hesitation, she gave a different figure. “No, I mean, sorry, they will cost, it will cost about, about £80m,” she said above the sound of turning pages.
But when it was pointed out that this would involve paying the additional officers only £8,000, Abbott hesitated further. At one stage she mistakenly suggested that Labour was planning to recruit an extra 250,000 officers, after making an earlier error that it was 25,000 officers.
She then wrongly denied claiming she had said Labour planned to recruit 250,000 officers, before partially regaining her composure. Abbott then read out what appeared to be annually costed figures from the party.
She said: “In year one we are getting ready to recruit, but in year two the cost will be £64.3m. In year three the cost will be £139.1m. Year four, the cost will be £217m and year five, the cost will be £298m and that can be amply covered by reversing the cuts in capital gains tax.”She said: “In year one we are getting ready to recruit, but in year two the cost will be £64.3m. In year three the cost will be £139.1m. Year four, the cost will be £217m and year five, the cost will be £298m and that can be amply covered by reversing the cuts in capital gains tax.”
Later Abbott admitted she “mis-spoke” but insisted she was in command of her brief. The Conservatives seized on Abbott’s stumbling performance as evidence that Labour cannot be trusted with public money – a claim the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, has been keen to shrug off since Jeremy Corbyn became leader.
The Conservatives seized on Abbott’s apparent lack of grasp on the figures as an example of its claims about the risks to the economy of a Labour government. The home secretary, Amber Rudd, said: “Diane Abbott has laid bare the chaos that Britain would face if Jeremy Corbyn is voted into Downing Street.” Corbyn defended Abbott, who is a close political ally, and was promoted to shadow home secretary in October, when Andy Burnham stepped down to fight the Manchester metropolitan mayoral election. Asked about Abbott’s interview on Tuesday, Corbyn said he was, “not embarrassed in the slightest”.
Earlier, the Conservatives had dismissed the policing proposal as “nonsensical” and claimed Labour had already committed the same savings to fund other pledges. Labour sources added that the interview was one of many Abbott had given on Tuesday, and the failure to get the figures right initially was an uncharacteristic slip-up from an effective media performer.
Abbott’s answer to this was more coherent. She told LBC: “The Conservatives would say that. We’ve not promised the money to any area. We have just pointed out that the cuts in capital gains tax will cost the taxpayer over £2bn and there are better ways of spending that money.” Abbott herself later said she had “mispoken”. She suggested media coverage of the slip-up had exaggerated its importance, and what really mattered was the substantive policy, which Labour insists it can fund in full.
She added: “As we roll out our manifesto process, we are specifically saying how we will fund specific proposals … We will fund the 10,000 extra police officers by using some, not all, but just some of the £2bn.” The policing pledge was the latest of a series of high-profile policy promises from Labour in recent days, including removing the cap on NHS pay; giving children free school meals; and cracking down on rogue landlords.
Abbott was later mobbed by reporters asking about the interview on her way to an appearance on the BBC’s Daily Politics. She told them: “I’m completely on top of my brief. I mis-spoke this morning. It was the sixth interview out of seven. I do know the figures.” Theresa May’s Conservatives have revealed fewer detailed policies, apart from promising to crack down on rip-off energy bills – a plan proposed by Labour in its 2015 election manifesto, when Ed Miliband was the leader.
On the Daily Politics Abbott was impassive as she was made to listen to the interview again. “You need to ask why the Conservatives are so anxious to move the debate away from the 20,000 police officers lost since 2010,” she said. But with Labour’s economic competence likely to be a central issue in the campaign, the party will face growing scrutiny of its policy pledges, and how it will make its manifesto add up – particularly since it has opted to guarantee the triple-lock on the basic state pension.
But, again, Abbott was caught out by falsely stating that she had given the correct figures in other interviews. The home secretary, Amber Rudd, said: “Diane Abbott has laid bare the chaos that Britain would face if Jeremy Corbyn is voted into Downing Street.
“If I didn’t know my figures, why was I able to do six other interviews and give the figures correctly?” Abbott asked. The interviewer, Jo Coburn, pointed out that she had not given any figures about the costing of the proposals in the other interviews. “One of Corbyn’s closest allies has clearly shown that Labour’s sums don’t add up, they would weaken our defences, and their nonsensical promises aren’t worth the paper they are printed on.”
Campaigning in Southampton, Corbyn defended Abbott. He told Sky News: “She corrected the figure and that’s the figure [£300m – the cost of the extra police officers] and it will be paid for by not going ahead with the cuts in capital gains tax.” Labour’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, who has clashed with Corbyn in the past, used a speech to the Usdaw conference in Blackpool yesterday to urge voters to think less about who they want to be prime minister on 9 June, and more about electing strong local MPs.
Asked if he found her performance embarrassing, he replied: “Not at all. We have corrected the figure. And it will be absolutely clear now, today, and in the manifesto. I’m not embarrassed in the slightest.” “We’ve heard a lot of talk about the qualities you need in a prime minister. Theresa May doesn’t think that the ability to answer questions is one of them. But sometimes the most important question isn’t what makes the best PM. It’s who makes the best MP,” he said, adding that Labour MPs would put the “interests of working people at their heart”.
Abbott is a close friend of Corbyn and one of his most important leftwing allies in the shadow cabinet.