Has Starmer lost control of the Diane Abbott story?
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 29 May 2024
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It's day two of the Diane Abbott fiasco and the Labour party look no closer to getting to grips with the situation.
Keir Starmer insists that no decision has been made on Abbott, but she says she's been banned from standing. How damaging could this be for the Labour campaign? And how has Starmer allowed it to dominate the headlines for the past 48 hours?
Later, we discuss Nigel Farage's role in the campaign so far, and ask why he's getting so much airtime and being treated like he's a party leader.
And we speak to The News Agents' official polling partner for the general election, More in Common, on whether the Tory proposed policy of National Service is actually a lot more popular than you first might think.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:08.1 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:12.1 | The whip has been restored to Diane Abbott, as you know, so she is a member of the parliamentary |
| 0:16.9 | Labour Party and no decision has been taken to Barha going forward. |
| 0:23.6 | Obviously, you know, my whole focus is on the election campaign and we're very happy to be out |
| 0:29.6 | campaigning here today, talking about what we're going to do in relation to the NHS to drive down. |
| 0:35.6 | We were told that the Labour campaign would be disciplined. We were told that the Labour campaign would be disciplined. |
| 0:38.9 | We were told that the Labour campaign would stay our message. |
| 0:42.0 | We were told that the Labour campaign would be laser-like |
| 0:45.2 | in attacking the Tories only going where it wanted to go. |
| 0:48.8 | And yet here we are in this first full week of the general election campaign |
| 0:52.5 | and what is the Labour Party, |
| 0:58.7 | Kiyos Dama, being forced to talk about day after day, but Diane Abbott? |
| 1:03.0 | He is saying no decision has been taken to bar her. |
| 1:06.8 | She's got the whip back as a member of the parliamentary Labour Party. |
| 1:10.2 | Then presumably she can stand as an MP. Or can't she? The Labour slogan is, stop the chaos. |
| 1:16.3 | This all looks pretty chaotic. Welcome to the newsagents. |
| 1:23.6 | The news agents. It's John. It's Lewis. |
| 1:26.9 | And you would have to say that things have not gone exactly brilliantly in the Labour Party |
| 1:33.6 | over the past 24 hours with what to do about Diane Abbott. |
| 1:38.3 | And it's hardly as if they can say, oh, this has come at us with surprise. |
| 1:42.8 | They have been dealing with this for months. |
... |
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