Diane Abbott: The Authorised Biography
£20.00
Hardback, 554 pages
ISBN: 9781785906039
24 September 2020
By Robin Bunce & Samara Linton
On the night Margaret Thatcher secured a third consecutive general election victory in June 1987, history was made by a daughter of Jamaican immigrants as she became the first black woman to be elected to Parliament. Diane Abbott entered the House of Commons at a time when there were no black MPs in Parliament and when fewer than 5 per cent of MPs were women. Three decades on and she is one of the best-known figures in Westminster.
Among her supporters, Abbott is a trailblazer who has remained true to her principles and to her community. For her opponents, she is a gaffe-prone politician who is out of her depth. Embarking on her political career in the radical left-wing Labour movement, she rose through the ranks of her party to the top of Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow Cabinet, making history again as the first black person to shadow one of the great offices of state.
Diane Abbott: The Authorised Biography draws on original interviews with Abbott herself, her friends, her colleagues and her political opponents, as well as extensive archival research, to tell her remarkable story. Tracing Abbott’s path from her upbringing in north London on to Cambridge University, through roles in the civil service and the media, and from local politics into the heart of Westminster,