Thursday
Mar272014
Diane Abbott on UKIP voters and "people like him" (points finger at me)
Thursday, March 27, 2014 at 18:35 
I was on the Daily Politics today with former Labour health spokesman Diane Abbott.
Full story to follow. But first I need a drink.
PS. Click on the image above and it will take you to this page on the BBC News website – Cigarette plain packaging: Diane Abbott and Simon Clark – where you can watch a clip of the interview.
Guido Fawkes also posted this piece: Out of touch Diane Abbott snobbishly sneers at constituents.
Reader Comments (5)
I watched the whole PP part on i-player just a couple of minutes ago. Abbott played the 'appeal to authority' card with a vengeance. I was a bit surprised that, when she said that she would rather believe doctors than ' a tobacco industry lobbyist' that you did not jump in and say, "No! We are not!" But I understand the difficulties.
It was noticeable how the presenters let her off the hook of the evidence.
It seems to me that the reason that she was sacked was that she is simply not able to blather well enough. It seems that the measure of whether or not a politician is good enough for a job as a minister is whether or not they can talk the talk convincingly. Abbot could not, and was sacked. Thus, we have ignorant and incompetent 'junior ministers' trying like mad to sound good.
What a way to run a country!
Still waiting for Abbot to answer that question about evidence.
Judging by time it took her to struggle for an answer I think she got caught out by the interviewer. Idiots of her ilk are so used to not being challenged when they mention 'We have evidence'.
I just hope the public at large noticed her hesitancy and failure to address the actual question.
She's an abusive bully with no manners. In the same she pointed at you in a derogatory manner,. she did the same to Roger Helmer with the added "men like him" jibe on QT last night.
Perhaps that's just a new way she's learned in how to try an discredit and attack people she disagrees with. Had you or Roger pointed at her and said "Women like her" no doubt you would have been labelled sexist or misogynist. - oh, and racist too just because she happens to be a black woman.
But please, as Junican pointed out, next time you are accused of being a representative of the tobacco industry lobby - please, please point out that you are not. You are funded by the tobacco industry to represent the rights and views of ordinary men and women who are legitimate adult consumers of a legal product. I have never heard Forest stand up for the tobacco industry but the consumer when some new scam is introduced to marginalise and stigmatise them further.
Frankly, I think the likes of Abbott should be marginalised. Her behaviour is both offensive and inappropriate.
Re the industry jibe, normally I would have responded but I had already interrupted her twice and I didn't feel I could interrupt again. Plus there was very limited time available to discuss more important issues which, in the event, I wasn't able to raise because of those time constraints.
Fair point Simon. We do understand and having been on that side of the camera, I know how difficult it is to get the points across that are important in the time available.
That said, however, no matter what interview ASH does, or what question they're asked, they always start with saying that Forest is an industry lackey so maybe next time you could try and get it out of the way at the start - maybe by saying something like "ASH will say we're industry lobbyists but we're not. We lobby on behalf of the little, ordinary, unfunded consumer ho has no voice in this debate."
And then if you have time at any point to squeeze it in, you could add "After all, who else is going to fund Forest other than the producer of the consumer product? Certainly not Govt which is busy giving money it hasn't got in austere times to ASH which doesn't represent ordinary people at all but its own interests and those of ideological lobbyists using the DoH as a front group."