Cabinet clowns
Rudd apologises after describing Diane Abbott as ‘coloured’
AMBER Rudd was forced to apologise yesterday after she referred to Labour frontbencher Diane Abbott as ‘coloured’ on a day of blunders by senior Tory women.
The Work and Pensions Secretary prompted a fierce backlash after using the ‘outdated’ and ‘offensive’ term while being interviewed about online abuse suffered by women.
Miss Rudd later said she was ‘mortified’ by her use of language. She wrote on Twitter: ‘Mortified at my clumsy language and sorry to @HackneyAbbott. My point stands: that no-one should suffer abuse because of their race or gender.’
She was among three female Cabinet ministers who came under criticism yesterday for controversial comments.
In response to a question about internet trolling, Miss Rudd told BBC Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine: ‘It definitely is worse if you’re a woman, and it’s worst of all if you’re a coloured woman.
‘I know that Diane Abbott gets a huge amount of abuse and I think that’s something we need to continue to call out.’
Miss Abbott, the shadow home secretary, responded: ‘The term “coloured” is an outdated, offensive and revealing choice of words.’
In the interview, Miss Rudd went on to refer to a report by Lord Bew, the former chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, into the trolling of public figures. ‘It definitely was the case that women get it more, black and black minority ethnic women get it additionally,’ she said.
‘It is just a particularly nasty form of attack that focuses on gender and colour.’
Responding to the minister’s comment, Labour MP Danielle Rowley claimed Miss Rudd ‘clearly gets her language from the same bygone era as her abhorrent welfare policies’.
Another Labour MP, David Lammy, added: ‘You might forgive your grandma for saying it, but Cabinet ministers in 2019 should know better than this. Using the term “coloured” to describe anyone who is not white is offensive because it assumes being white is somehow normal or the default.’ SNP MP Martin Docherty-Hughes described Miss Rudd’s comments as ‘bloody outrageous’. But Tory MP Johnny Mercer tweeted: ‘Ridiculous stuff going on around one of the loveliest members of Parliament up here, who was speaking apologised. out against You racism. can’t Misspoke, say you want human beings as MPs and then hammer them for inadvertent slip-ups. Move on.’ Earlier in the day, to mark International Women’s Day Miss Rudd had posted a video of herself reading out abuse she suffered online. Following her ‘coloured’ comments, she was subjected to a wave of abuse from internet users who described her as a ‘dinosaur’, ‘nasty little racist’ and ‘disgusting’. The apology by Miss Rudd, seen as a potential future Tory leadership challenger, comes four months after she returned to the Cabinet after resigning as home secretary last April over the Windrush scandal.
Last month former Labour MP Angela Smith, who quit the party to join the new Independent Group, apologised after she seemed to suggest people from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds had a ‘funny tinge’.
Advice on racial terminology issued to UK universities describes the term ‘coloured’ as ‘outdated’, although ‘still fairly commonly employed’. It adds, however, that its usage tends to cause offence.