The Tories have had a tough week trying to find their line on comments made by their biggest donor Frank Hester. But the Labour party hasn’t escaped unscathed either. Independent MP Diane Abbott has taken her side of the story to the papers — and delivered a blistering attack on her former party.
Abbott revealed in the Guardian that she had been planning to ask the Prime Minister about Frank Hester’s remarks in the Commons. But despite attempting to get the Speaker’s attention almost, er, 50 times, Abbott wasn’t successful. Turning to the column pages, she described how she had been ‘upset but not surprised’ by Hester’s comments and slammed the Tories for playing ’the race card’. Then she turned the guns on Labour…
‘Sadly, racism in politics is not just a matter for any one political party,’ Abbott noted. Referencing a Starmer-commissioned report from 2022 that examined allegations of racism and sexism in the Labour party, she wrote about ‘how abusive senior Labour party officials were’ about her in WhatsApp chats.
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