Anneliese Dodds stammers when asked whether any Shadow Cabinet members had been in touch with Britain’s first Black woman MP, before admitting nobody had
Anneliese Dodds, Labour’s ‘Women and equalities’ spokeswoman, stammered and dodged her way through an interview on Sky News this morning, ultimately admitting that neither she, Keir Starmer, nor anyone else in Starmer’s shadow cabinet – nor apparently the party’s whips – had bothered to get in touch with Diane Abbott.
Ms Abbott, Britain’s first Black woman MP, has been in the headlines after racist and violent comments from the Tories’ biggest ever donor and has spoken publicly about how vulnerable she has felt as a result.
Dodds tried to excuse the lack of contact by claiming no phones are allowed in shadow cabinet meetings and then she had hurried to the Sky studio – as if mobile phones don’t work on the way to TV interviews. She also said that she wasn’t in charge of Starmer’s diary so couldn’t say when he would be in touch and could only say the party’s ‘whips’, who she said are responsible for MPs’ welfare, had been in contact with Abbott ‘for several months’, not since the news of the donor’s racist comments broke:
The interview sparked disgust among many who saw it:
Starmer and other Labour MPs – including Wes Streeting – have performatively condemned Frank Hester’s comments. However, Starmer has not punished the blatant racism – much of it directed at Diane Abbott – revealed in the leaked 2020 report on the conduct of senior party staff and confirmed by barrister Martin Forde’s investigation.
And Streeting was responsible for a 2018 ‘disgusting’ and ‘disgraceful’ verbal assault in Ms Abbott’s face in a Commons corridor, witnessed by other MPs and staff, for which he has never, at least publicly, apologised and which he threatened to sue Skwawkbox for revealing, a threat he did not carry out after Skwawkbox stood its ground:
Streeting has never been disciplined for his behaviour and was promoted by Starmer to Shadow Health Secretary.
Keir Starmer has presided over the targeting of a series of Black and Brown MPs and other elected figures, while ignoring others who faced foul racism – and his treatment of Diane Abbott, up to and including this latest incident, who has long suffered the most appalling racism of any MP, has been a disgrace that is only compounded by his hypocritical attempts to make political capital out of yet more abuse toward her.
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