Comments about me by £10m Tory donor were frightening, says Abbott

Diane Abbott has said it was "frightening" to hear of remarks made by the Conservative donor Frank Hester, who told colleagues that looking at her made you "want to hate all black women" and said the MP "should be shot".

- Rowena Mason , Aletha Adu

Hester, who has given £10m to the Tories in the past year, said in a 2019 meeting reported by the Guardian that he did not hate all black women.

But he said that seeing Abbott, who is Britain's longest-serving black MP, on TV meant "you just want to hate all black women because she's there".

Abbott released a statement yesterday saying she is a "single woman and that makes me vulnerable anyway, but to hear someone talking like this is worrying".

The MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington said: "It is frightening. I live in Hackney, I don't drive, so I find myself, at weekends, popping on a bus or even walking places, more than most MPs... For all of my career as an MP I have thought it important not to live in a bubble, but to mix and mingle with ordinary people. The fact that two MPs have been murdered in recent years makes talk like this all the more alarming." 

She added: "I'm currently not a member of the parliamentary Labour party, but remain a member of the Labour party itself, so I am hoping for public support from Keir Starmer."