My warm, effervescent friend Diane does not deserve this bigoted, brainless badmouthing
WHATEVER you may think of Diane Abbott, she does not deserve the bigoted, brainless badmouthing she is said to have received from the £10 million Conservative Party donor Frank Hester.
Yet demonising Diane is nothing new. She has been targeted by trolls and hatemailers for decades.
But why? It is a question I have often asked myself from the unusual perspective of being a former Tory Cabinet Minister who is proud to know Diane as a close friend and is godfather to her son, James. I have been helping him through some of his recent legal and medical problems.
To understand the warm, effervescent woman who was the first female black MP to enter the House of Commons nearly 37 years ago, it is useful to separate the personal Diane from the political Diane.
Politically, I have almost never agreed with a single word she has said.
Personally, I hugely enjoy her company and her glorious joie de vivre. However, there are tinges of stoical sadness in her personality as well.
All these qualities were on display when we met for one of our regular lunches last Saturday at Chelsea’s Le Colombier restaurant.
She and James are keen foodies, and between us we enjoyed a gourmet feast worthy of several Michelin stars.
The conversation was as sparkling as the champagne. I had brought along a second godchild of mine, a 24-year-old third-year politics student at Greenwich University and Labour Party activist.
Sharon’s passionate reverence for the Member of Parliament for Hackney (even though they disagreed about Israel) was a reminder that for many thousands of aspirational young Brits of colour, Diane Abbott has provided their inspiration.
‘She ran so that people like me could walk,’ said Samuel Kasumu, a former No. 10 Special Adviser to Boris Johnson in a moving tribute to her on yesterday’s radio 4 Today programme.
How have I come to know and admire Diane? We first met in the early 1980s at TV-AM, when she was a trade union representative fighting for the rights of her National Union of Journalists colleagues.
I was the station’s acting Chief executive tasked with reducing the beleaguered company’s workforce.
So, of course, we clashed — yet with some lasting traces of mutual respect.
Later, in the House of Commons, we were a ‘pair’ for more than 15 years.
This is a little-understood yet invaluable Parliamentary arrangement, by which the MPs from opposite sides of the House both agree to absent themselves from less important votes, so that they can be away from Westminster in their constituencies or elsewhere. ‘Pairs’ often became friends, but I suspect Diane and I might not have enjoyed a deep friendship had it not been for the drama of her mother’s death, when Diane was in her early 30s.
In Westminster we were on an all-night sitting when, at about 1am, I saw Diane sobbing on one of the division lobby telephones.
‘Boyfriend dramas, again?’ I asked her. ‘No! My mother is dying in Whipps Cross Hospital. Could you drive me there right now?’ she cried.
When we got to the hospital we could not find Mrs Abbott (who was known as ‘Big Lil’ to differentiate her from ‘Little Diane’) in her ward.
After a frantic search, we discovered her on a trolley near the operating theatre. She was at death’s door.
But Diane at least had time to say her farewells before her mother passed away some 20 minutes later.
Helping Diane get through the shock of bereavement and organising her mother’s funeral at St Margaret’s Church, Westminster (where I was churchwarden), began the bonds of our friendship. Then, after James was born in October 1991, I organised his christening in the Crypt Chapel of the House of Commons, and gave a festive lunch afterwards at my nearby home in Lord North Street.
Besides James and his parents, the lunch guests included Trevor Phillips, Harriet Harman MP and all sorts of luminaries among the rising stars of Black Britain.
When I heard the reports of Frank Hester’s attack on Diane on the 7am news bulletin yesterday, I immediately telephoned my old friend. She was sad and frightened, yet courageous:
‘I am so hurt and upset that I shall report him to the police,’ she told me. ‘But soon I’ll get back to what I’ve been doing for nearly 40 years now — ignoring the haters and concentrating on serving my constituents and my party.’
The reference to ‘ my party’ struck a poignant note. For Diane loves Labour with the sentimental if erratic affection of a traditional, unconstructed Left-winger.
NEVERTHELESS, she is currently suspended from the party whip for having written an unwise letter (for which she promptly retracted and apologised) which some interpreted as anti-Semitic.
I happen know from innumerable conversations with Diane about past and present Middle east crises that she is not remotely anti-Semitic.
In my personal and political opinion, Labour ought to release her from their sin bin and reinstate her party whip. To judge by Keir Starmer’s generous comments yesterday about ‘the trailblazer’, as he called Diane, I hope this restoration will not be long-delayed.
So if some good can come out of this unseemly brouhaha over Mr Hester’s idiotic sentiments (for which he has at least apologised), it should be a return to civility and courtesy in all attitudes and actions about my friend, Diane Abbott.