Home Sec Diane Abbott has been off sick since cancelling her appearance on Woman’s Hour yesterday but has she been sacked?
Jeremy Corbyn was giving nothing away when he told BBC Breakfast that she had not been well for a “couple of days” and was “taking a break from the campaign”.
He said: “Of course Diane is somebody that works extremely hard and represents her community very well and I have to say has received totally unfair levels of attack and abuse not just recently – over many years.”
Asked about the length of her absence, Corbyn replied: “I’ll be talking to her later on today – she’s not well at the moment. I won’t be answering hypotheticals. She maybe feeling unwell for months, for all I know?”
Abbott will be temporarily replaced by shadow policing secretary and MP for West Ham Lynn Brown.
Whilst we wish Ms Abbott a speedy recovery, we hope that she will not rush back to work too soon, and takes as long as she needs to recover fully from her illness. Two or three decades away from the shadow cabinet should do it.
