DIANE Abbott has been accused by the Conservatives of “laying bare the chaos” Britain would face if Labour won power after giving a string of incorrect figures about her party's flagship policing policy.
The Shadow Home Secretary admitted she had “mis-spoken” after stumbling in a radio interview about the cost of putting an extra 10,000 police officers on the streets of England and Wales.
In awkward and embarrassing exchanges with Nick Ferrari, a presenter on London’s LBC station, Ms Abbott suggested the new officers would earn just £30; a second attempt left them with £8,000.
Her assessment of how many new officers would be recruited in the first 12 months of the four-year plan ranged from 25,000 to 250,000,
Later, the Shadow Cabinet Minister insisted she did know her figures, explaining: “I did seven interviews that morning and that was the seventh and I mis-spoke. But I do know my figures."
She told BBC Two’s Daily Politics programme: "If I didn't know my figures, I wouldn't have been able to repeat them correctly in six other interviews."
But when presenter Jo Coburn said: "You haven't; I haven't heard you repeat them at all," Ms Abbott replied: "Well, I can repeat them now,” adding that she was concerned the programme did not want to talk about policing.
"But that's your fault, Diane Abbott," Ms Coburn interjected.
The Shadow Home Secretary said: "The public will understand that you are not willing to talk about the real issues and the real issues are that we have lost 20,000 police officers since 2010 and we are seeing a rise in violent crime."
Asked if she believed she had instilled confidence in voters over Labour's plans, she replied: "People that listened to any of the interviews I gave this morning, with the exception of the LBC interview, will know that I do know the figures."
On the campaign trail, Jeremy Corbyn made clear he was "not embarrassed in the slightest" by Ms Abbott's gaffe and confirmed the cost of Labour’s policy would be £300 million.
"She corrected the figure and that's the figure and it will be paid for by not going ahead with the cuts in Capital Gains Tax," he told Sky News.
Asked if it was embarrassing that Ms Abbott had got the figures wrong, he said: "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."
However, the gaffe was quickly seized on by the Conservatives, who claimed it showed that Labour's sums "don't add up".
Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, said: "Diane Abbott has laid bare the chaos that Britain would face if Jeremy Corbyn is voted into Downing Street.
"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."
During her LBC interview, the Shadow Home Secretary repeatedly paused and stumbled as she gave a range of figures for how many extra officers would be recruited and what the bill for the plan would come to.
Asked about the cost, she said: "Well, if we recruit the 10,000 police men and women over a four-year period, we believe it will be about £300,000."
Mr Ferrari replied: "£300,000 for 10,000 police officers? How much are you paying them?"
Ms Abbott said: "No, I mean, sorry, they will cost, it will cost about, about £80 million."
The radio host asked: "About £80 million? How do you get to that figure?"
The Labour frontbencher replied: "We get to that figure because we anticipate recruiting 25,000 extra police officers a year at least over a period of four years. And we are looking at both what average police wages are generally but also specifically police wages in London."
Asked if Labour had thought the policy through, Ms Abbott replied: “Of course, this has been thought through.”
But then she stumbled over the party’s proposals for extra police numbers.
"The figures are that the additional cost in year one, when we anticipate recruiting about 250,000 policemen, will be £64.3 million," she said.
When Mr Ferrari queried the figure of 250,000 policemen, Ms Abbott responded: "And women."
Ms Abbott then sought to correct herself, saying: "No, we are recruiting 2,000 and - perhaps – 250."
Mr Ferrari asked: "So where did 250,000 come from?"
Ms Abbott responded: "You said that, not me."
He replied: "I can assure you, you said that because I wrote it down."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel