IT DOESN’T ADD UP!
Diane’s sums blunder exposes Labour folly
LABOUR’S Diane Abbott said she “mis-spoke” when she gave a string of incorrect figures during a radio interview about her new policing policy.
The shadow home secretary stumbled over the cost of plans to put 10,000 extra police on the streets in awkward exchanges with LBC’s Nick Ferrari.
In one attempt to come up with the bill for the flagship policy, she said officers would earn just £30 while a second go left them with £8,000.
Ms Abbott’s 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,
The shadow cabinet minister told BBC Two’s Daily Politics: “I do know my figures. I did seven interviews that morning and that was the seventh and I mis-spoke.”
Ms Abbott claimed she had repeated the figures correctly during the course of six previous broadcast interviews earlier yesterday morning.
Concerned
“If I didn’t know my figures, I wouldn’t have been able to repeat them correctly in six other interviews,” she added.
Asked if she’d been guessing the figures, she replied: “I knew the figures because I have repeated them many times this morning.”
Presenter Jo Coburn said: “You haven’t, I haven’t heard you repeat them at all.”
Ms Abbott said: “Well, I can repeat them now. I’m concerned that you don’t want to talk about policing, something the public is concerned with, particularly the rise in violent crime, and you want to go over and over an interview.”
“But that’s your fault, Diane Abbott,” Coburn replied.
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.”
The gaffe was quickly seized on by the Conservatives, who claimed it showed Labour’s sums “don’t add up”.
Home Secretary Amber Rudd 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’d weaken our defences.”
At her LBC interview, Ms Abbott 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.
She initially said the four-year project would cost £300,000, then revised it up to £80m before finally landing on £718m.
Although the plan is to recruit 10,000 officers, Ms Abbott said 25,000 recruits would be brought in annually, before later saying 250,000 policemen would be employed in the first year of the scheme.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn told Sky News he was “not embarrassed in the slightest” by Ms Abbott’s gaffe.