Diane Abbott
Diane Abbott is Britain's longest serving Black MP. She is the member of Parliament for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, London. She's been a member of the Labour Party since 1971 and came to prominence during the election campaigns of 1987 where she became the first Black female MP.
In the late 80s she lined-up alongside Labour Party radicals Ken Livingstone (now Mayor of London) - then the head of the Greater London Council (GLC), MP for Tottenham the late Bernie Grant and others branded the loony left.
A Cambridge graduate, she has worked in media as both a researcher and a journalist. Abbott married in 1991 and had a son by husband David Thompson - the marriage ended in the mid 90s. She next hit the headlines with one of many outbursts on the subject of 'foreign' nurses within NHS. Other headline dominating moments included opting to send her only son to a private school which had her critics working overtime.
Abbott is widely seen as being less vocal then her early days in politics and many say her tub-thumping days are over. She’s on the party's national executive and has some influence. She's also returned to her media roots and shares the sofa with former Tory MP Michael Portillo (an old school chum) in a post BBC Newsnight television slot.
Abbott is seen as a rather down-to-earth MP she has several columns in local and national newspapers. She still lives in her north London constituency and can be seen commuting to and from the House on public transport from time-to-time.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Date of birth: 27 September 1953 Place of birth: London
Marital status & family: Divorced, one son
Best known as: Outspoken Labour 'loony leftie'
Honours & accolades: The first Black women elected to parliament in 1987
CONTACT DIANE
E-mail: glennc@parliament.uk
Link: www.dianeabbott.org.uk
Phone: 0207 219 4426
...along with Tottenham MP Bernie Grant, she was branded among the loony left.
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