Diane Abbott

Politician

Diane Abbott was born in Paddington, England, United Kingdom on September 27th, 1953 and is the Politician. At the age of 70, Diane Abbott biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, and networth are available.

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Date of Birth
September 27, 1953
Nationality
United Kingdom
Place of Birth
Paddington, England, United Kingdom
Age
70 years old
Zodiac Sign
Libra
Profession
Journalist, Politician
Social Media
Diane Abbott Height, Weight, Eye Color and Hair Color

At 70 years old, Diane Abbott physical status not available right now. We will update Diane Abbott's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

Height
Not Available
Weight
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Hair Color
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Eye Color
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Build
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Measurements
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Diane Abbott Religion, Education, and Hobbies
Religion
Not Available
Hobbies
Not Available
Education
Newnham College, Cambridge
Diane Abbott Spouse(s), Children, Affair, Parents, and Family
Spouse(s)
David Ayensu-Thompson, ​ ​(m. 1991; div. 1993)​
Children
1
Dating / Affair
Not Available
Parents
Not Available
Diane Abbott Career

Abbott's career in politics began in 1982 when she was elected to Westminster City Council, serving until 1986. In 1983, she was active in the Labour Party Black Sections movement, alongside Bernie Grant, Paul Boateng and Keith Vaz, campaigning for greater African Caribbean and Asian political representation. In 1985, she unsuccessfully fought to be selected in Brent East, losing out to Ken Livingstone. In 1987, Abbott was elected to the House of Commons, replacing the deselected serving Labour MP Ernie Roberts as MP for Hackney North & Stoke Newington. She was the first black woman to become an MP.

Abbott's speech on civil liberties, in the debate on the Counter-Terrorism Bill 2008, won The Spectator magazine's "Parliamentary Speech of the Year" award, and further recognition at the 2008 Human Rights awards. A speech by Abbott in a House of Commons debate on the Caribbean is included in Margaret Busby's 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa.

Abbott has served on a number of parliamentary committees on social and international issues and held shadow ministerial positions in successive Shadow Cabinets. For most of the 1990s, she also served on the Treasury Select Committee of the House of Commons. She went on to serve on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. She gave birth to her son in October 1991, one year before the House of Commons introduced a crèche. She did not have maternity leave and was obliged to attend Parliament and vote throughout her pregnancy. Giving birth on a Monday, she was made to work until the Thursday before, and returned to parliament eight days later.

Abbott chairs the All-Party Parliamentary British-Caribbean Group and the All-Party Sickle Cell and Thalassemia Group. She is the founder of the London Schools and the Black Child initiative, which aims to raise educational achievement levels amongst black children.

In May 2010, Abbott was returned as MP for the constituency of Hackney North and Stoke Newington, with a doubled majority on an increased turn-out. She was again re-elected in 2015 with 62% of the vote.

At Goldsmiths' College, on 26 October 2012, a jubilee celebration was held to honour Abbott's 25 years in parliament, with a series of contributions by Linton Kwesi Johnson, Kadija Sesay, Tunday Akintan and others.

On 20 May 2010, Abbott announced her intention to stand in the Labour leadership contest. She secured the necessary 33 nominations by 9 June, assisted by the withdrawal of left-wing candidate John McDonnell and support from David Miliband and Jack Straw, among others. On Saturday, 25 September 2010, Ed Miliband was announced as the new leader of the Labour Party, Abbott having been eliminated in the first round of voting after securing 7.24% of votes.

Abbott was later appointed Shadow Minister for Public Health by Ed Miliband, taking shadow responsibility for a range of issues including children's health, maternity services, sexual health, tobacco, nursing, obesity and alcohol abuse. Following her move onto the front bench, the Telegraph said on 27 September 2011 that Abbott had "become one of Labour's best front bench performers".

On the issue of abortion, Abbott has become a vocal "pro-choice" supporter, opposing moves towards changing abortion counselling policy, and reducing the abortion time limit. She resigned from a cross-party group on abortion counselling saying it was no more than a front to push forward an anti-abortion agenda without debate in parliament.

In 2011, she voted in favour of military intervention in Libya.

On 5 February 2013, following the Second Reading, Abbott voted in favour of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill.

On 8 October 2013, Abbott was sacked as Shadow Public Health Minister in a reshuffle by Labour leader Ed Miliband, and replaced by Luciana Berger. On 23 June 2014, Abbott had stated she would consider standing in the 2016 London mayoral election as Mayor of London. On 30 November 2014, Abbott announced her intention to put herself forward to become Labour's candidate at the London mayoral elections in 2016. She was unsuccessful in her bid for Labour's 2015 London mayoral election nomination.

She was one of 16 signatories of an open letter to Ed Miliband in January 2015 calling on the party to commit to oppose further austerity, take rail franchises back into public ownership and strengthen collective bargaining arrangements.

A close ally of Jeremy Corbyn, Abbott was one of 36 Labour MPs to nominate him as a candidate in the Labour leadership election of 2015. Following Corbyn's election as Labour leader, Abbott was appointed to the post of Shadow Secretary of State for International Development.

On 27 June 2016, after the resignations of many of Labour's ministerial team in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum, Abbott was promoted to the position of Shadow Health Secretary.

On 6 October 2016, following the resignation of Andy Burnham, Abbott was appointed Shadow Home Secretary. She was sworn of the Privy Council on 15 February 2017.

On 2 May 2017, during that year's general election campaign, Labour's pledge to recruit an extra 10,000 police officers was overshadowed by Abbott's inability to give accurate funding figures. In an interview on LBC Radio with Nick Ferrari, she repeatedly struggled to explain how the promise would be funded. In the interview, Abbott frequently paused, shuffled her papers and gave out the wrong figures. When asked about her performance, the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, insisted he was not embarrassed by what many pundits called a "car crash" interview.

In a further interview conducted by ITV on 5 May 2017, as the 2017 local elections results were being announced, Abbott was again unable to give accurate figures on the Labour party's performance suggesting that the party had a net loss of 50 seats. However, her figure was corrected by the interviewer who stated that Labour had in fact lost 125 seats, at which point Abbott said that the last figures she had seen were a net loss of around 100.

Appearing on Andrew Marr's Sunday morning programme for the BBC on 28 May, Abbott's apparent support for the IRA nearly 35 years ago came up, along with some parliamentary votes Marr thought questionable. These included her advocacy of the abolition of "conspiratorial groups" such as MI5 and Special Branch in the late 1980s, both of which she said had been successfully reformed. She defended a vote opposing the proscription of a list of groups, including al-Qaida, on the basis that some of the others had the status of dissidents in their country of origin and Abbott would have voted to ban al-Qaida in isolation. According to Sam Coates in The Times, this appearance was arranged without the consent of Labour's campaign team.

On 5 June 2017, during a Sky News interview, Abbott was unable to answer questions about the Harris report on how to protect London from terror attacks. She insisted that she had read the report, but was unable to recall any of the 127 recommendations. When asked if she could remember the specific recommendations, Abbott said: "I think it was an important review and we should act on it." Abbott also denied reports that Corbyn and shadow chancellor John McDonnell were attempting to stop her from making broadcasts. The next day, Abbott withdrew at the last minute – citing illness – from a joint interview on Woman's Hour on 6 June, in which she had been due to face her Conservative frontbench opposite number Amber Rudd. On 7 June, Corbyn announced that Abbott was "not well" and had stepped aside in her role as Shadow Home Secretary. Lyn Brown was temporarily assigned to replace her. Barry Gardiner said in a radio interview on LBC that Abbott had been diagnosed with having a "long-term" medical condition, and was "coming to terms with that".

In spite of these controversies, Abbott was re-elected in her seat of Hackney North and Stoke Newington, receiving 75% of the constituency's votes with an increased majority of over 35,000. The following week it became known that Abbott had been diagnosed as suffering from type 2 diabetes in 2015. "During the election campaign, everything went crazy – and the diabetes was out of control, the blood sugar was out of control", she told The Guardian. Dealing with six or seven interviews in a row became problematic because she was not eating enough food, which forced a break upon her; however, the condition is back under control. Abbott returned to the role of Shadow Home Secretary on 18 June.

On 2 October 2019, Abbott became the first black MP at the dispatch box at Prime Minister's Questions. She served as a temporary stand-in for the Leader of the Opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, while First Secretary of State Dominic Raab stood in for Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Abbott was a supporter of Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow, and defended him from bullying allegations made by David Leakey. She was re-elected at the snap 2019 general election.

On 23 February 2020, Abbott said she would be standing down as Shadow Home Secretary and leaving the frontbench upon the election of a new Labour leader. She stood down on 5 April and was succeeded by Nick Thomas-Symonds.

In April 2020, she was appointed to the Home Affairs Select Committee.

In May 2021, she wrote in a Guardian article that if Labour was to lose the Batley and Spen by-election, Starmer should resign as Labour leader. She described the local elections as disappointing for Labour. Abbott criticised the shadow cabinet reshuffle later carried out by Keir Starmer. She told Sophy Ridge on Sky News that his demotion of Angela Rayner was "baffling". After the 2022 local elections, Abbott said that Keir Starmer should resign if he is fined by Durham Constabulary over Beergate.

Source

Tory donor Frank Hester was accused of making 'racist' remarks about Diane Abbott, according to police

www.dailymail.co.uk, March 22, 2024
West Yorkshire Police are looking into reports that Tory donor Frank Hester told Diane Abbott, Britain's longest-serving black member, he 'want to hate all black women' and'should be shot.' Mr Hester, who is accused of more than £10 million to the Conservatives, has confessed to being 'rude,' but denied being racist or sexist. As the meeting took place in Horsforth, Leeds, the Metropolitan Police were handed over by the Metropolitan Police.

As the London mayor calls her a 'fighter against racial injustice and social injustice, Sadiq Khan joins a growing chorus of senior Labour figures supporting Diane Abbott's return to the party after her suspension due to an anti-Semitism investigation.'

www.dailymail.co.uk, March 18, 2024
The London mayor confirmed he was 'partial' in the controversy over whether her suspension for suspected anti-Semitic remarks would continue. Ms Abbott branded Ms Abbott as a "fighter against racial injustice and socioeconomic injustice" in his re-election bid in London. Last week, top Tory donor Frank Hester suggested she be shot and that her beliefs made him "hate all black people";

ANDREW PIERCE: Will Rishi Sunak face a confidence referendum before March is out?

www.dailymail.co.uk, March 17, 2024
ANDREW PIERCE: Rishi Sunak and his entourage trudled onto the Commons last week to attend a reception for the 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs, there were no candidates looking to bend his ears. Lee Anderson, the Tory deputy chairman, had defected to Reform the United Kingdom just hours before. The party's top donor Frank Hester was chastised for the tepid No 10's reaction to racial remarks towards veteran MP Diane Abbott. And the much-anticipated Budget from the previous week had dropped without a trace, having failed to turn the political dial. However, despite the fact that the morning air was brimming with talk of leadership strategies, Sunak lasted only 15 minutes.
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