Diane Abbott has revealed Labour’s biggest political problem

Peter Mandelson said just before the 2001 general election, that ‘no politician would declare that they were “against” ambition’. And yet, that’s what Diane Abbott did on Newsnight yesterday evening. In an interview with Lewis Goodall, she spoke about Keir Starmer and the time she shared with him in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet. Asked about his evident desire to become Labour leader, Abbott replied, ‘Keir Starmer’s ambition is fairly apparent’, with ‘ambition’ said in an accusatory way, as if having such a thing was an obviously bad thing. ‘I blame his mother for calling him Keir’, the former shadow home secretary added at another point in the interview.

Abbott’s comments are representative of so much that has gone wrong within the Labour party over the last decade, and what may be the biggest obstacle in the way of Starmer becoming Prime Minister.

There’s a story Tony Blair used to tell about canvassing that is probably apocryphal but instructive nonetheless.