Diane Abbott

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand eight.

Presenter0:26

My castaway this week is the MP Diane Abbott. The first black woman to be elected to Westminster, she's been the Labour MP for Hackney for more than twenty years. From an ordinary working class background, she's consciously propelled herself into the heart of the establishment. Cambridge, the civil service and parliament have been her surroundings. Yet she hasn't always been comfortable there. She says Gordon Brown booted her off an influential committee for asking too many questions, and she was an outspoken critic of the Iraq war.

Presenter0:56

My life has been a search for power, she says, and every time I get to where it's supposed to be, I've been told it's just gone.

Presenter1:04

Interesting that you are as upfront using the word power. A lot of politicians don't use the word power. They say things like I want to make a difference. It's always been about power, has it?

Diane Abbott1:14

It's never been about personal power, but

Diane Abbott1:17

It's always been about change and in order to really change society you have to

Diane Abbott1:24

you know, be where the levers of power are.

Presenter1:26

Uh

Presenter1:27

In the introduction, and this will be common to you, I'm sure, every time you are either interviewed or a profile is written about you in the newspapers, people say the first black woman MP. I'm wondering how important that is to you.

Diane Abbott1:40

Well, in a way it's not important to me, but it's obviously important to other people. I remember when I was first elected meeting an older West Indian woman somewhere and she said, You know, every time I see her on the television I feel big.

Diane Abbott1:54

And you know, there were lots of people at the time for whom to see somebody like themselves in Parliament was very empowering.

Presenter2:02

Yeah.

Diane Abbott2:02

I'm not.

Presenter2:03

That's that's good.

Diane Abbott2:05

That was June 1987.

Presenter2:06

Can you tell me about your memories of that time of being elected?

Diane Abbott2:09

Well remember, if you're born into a working class Jamaican family or the ultimate outsider

Diane Abbott2:15

There were no black MPs before the four of us got elected in nineteen eighty seven and a lot of people thought we couldn't get elected. A lot of people in Hackney thought I couldn't get elected.

Diane Abbott2:25

And perhaps in my heart I wondered if I could get elected. So election night, my mother was there, my brother was there, old friends I hadn't seen for years that somehow smuggled themselves into the election count was the most amazing night. But that night, and I think for months afterwards, I was kind of in a daze. I would sit on the green benches, look at all these sort of middle-aged white men around me and think, gosh, me here, really? It was

Presenter2:54

How

Diane Abbott2:54

Possibility

Presenter2:54

And your mother was there to watch your maidens.

Diane Abbott2:57

Yeah, mummy was there for our maiden speech.

Presenter2:58

What we have got

Diane Abbott3:00

I don't know, but you know, you've got to remember that, you know, her great great grandparents would have been slaves, and to see her daughter standing up there in in Parliament

Diane Abbott3:13

I I think it would have been extraordinary for her. So tell me about your first piece of music then. My first piece of music reminds me of my mother actually and it reminds me of being very young.

Diane Abbott3:22

I always remember we had what we called a radiogram, which was a very sort of massive piece of wooden equipment and we were very proud of. We had a radiogram and we had a cocktail cabinet. We never drank cocktails. We had one bottle of sherry in there most of the time. And the radiogram was used for playing our

Diane Abbott3:41

Small number of records, and one of Mummy's favourites was Hara Belafonte and Scarlet Ribbons.

Diane Abbott3:48

And the theme of the song.

Diane Abbott3:51

actually brings back my childhood as well,'cause as a little girl I had all these plaits, which my mother used to religiously plait every morning, and she every day I had fresh ribbons. So Cosy's a great Jamaican, Cosy reminds me of my mother.

Diane Abbott4:05

Um, because it brings back

Diane Abbott4:07

My childhood.

Diane Abbott4:09

I'd like to hear Harry Belafonte and Scarlet Ribbons.

Diane Abbott4:12

Uh

Speaker 44:12

I peeked in and on her bed In gay profusion lying there

Speaker 44:29

Lovely ribbons, scarlet ribbons, scarlet ribbons, four

Presenter4:42

Harry Belafonte and Scarlet Ribbons and memories for you, Diane Abbott, of of your own hair plaiting every morning. Your mother used to sit there and I understand you used to sit and listen to the news while she was plaiting your hair.

Diane Abbott4:48

And every morning

Diane Abbott4:52

We used to listen to the eight o'clock news, which I suppose has given me my lasting interest in politics.

Presenter4:59

Yeah.

Diane Abbott4:59

Yeah.

Presenter5:00

So you were properly

Diane Abbott5:00

Listening

Presenter5:01

Men as a little girl.

Diane Abbott5:01

Oh sure, I would listen to, you know, strikes and wars and whatever, and I would think, you know, if I were Secretary of the United Nations, I would do this.

Presenter5:12

I mean, was there a culture within the family? Was there a culture within the the Jamaican immigrant community of being questioning, of always wondering and being involved in in the bigger picture?

Diane Abbott5:22

My parents weren't particularly political, they always voted and they always voted Labour. I think that people from the Caribbean, because

Diane Abbott5:31

You know, within families we'll have travelled all over the world. We tend to be quite internationalist.

Diane Abbott5:37

So maybe that was part of my out.

Presenter5:40

And You were brought up in Harrow, but you were born originally i in London. When you moved to Harrow, w was there a change? Did you notice the difference?

Diane Abbott5:50

I was born in St. Mary's Harrow Road.

Diane Abbott5:53

And we lived in a house in Paddington, which we owns, but every single room was laid, and we lived in one room.

Diane Abbott6:03

We had a cooker on the landing. And then in a huge kind of piece of social upward mobility, Daddy bought another house in Harrow, which we lived in on our own, well almost on our own. We had a lodger. But that was a big deal.

Diane Abbott6:18

The thing that struck me about living in Harrow

Diane Abbott6:22

And it must have struck my parents very forcibly is there were just no other black people living there at the time. So every Saturday we'd all pile in the car, drive back to Paddington, collect our rent, do our shopping, see our friends and probably end up in the evening round somebody's house with my parents chatting about the old times and listening to someone's radiogram.

Diane Abbott6:42

I mean, Harrow's a much more diverse area now, but then we really felt like pioneers, you know, in the last frontier. What did your parents do?

Diane Abbott6:51

Daddy was a welder, a sheet metal worker. He was a skilled man and um mummy had been a nurse. She came here as a pupil nurse, but when I was born she stopped nursing and she was at home really when I was growing up.

Presenter7:05

Yeah.

Presenter7:06

The fact that he had bought the house and and, you know, for financial reasons obviously rented out various rooms and you lived in in in one uh smaller apartment together is v is very interesting. Di was he a man fueled by ambition? Did did he want great things for his children, for example?

Diane Abbott7:21

Well, he was ambitious, but you have to remember in that era most almost all West Indians bought their homes. Not least because councils just wouldn't house black people full stop. So people everyone bought their homes and everybody had to

Presenter7:30

Some people

Diane Abbott7:34

let them out in order to be able to afford the mortgage. But there was also you're talking about a West Indian community which largely came from the countryside and believed passionately in owning something.

Diane Abbott7:47

You know, even though, as I say, we could only live in one room, even though every other room had to be let, it was important, coming as you did from rural Jamaica, to own something. And what did they want for you? Did they have ambition for you? Oh, they were very ambitious for me, but their ambitions clearly had a ceiling. I think I mean, if I had become, say, a staff nurse, I think they would have thought that was

Diane Abbott8:08

Something

Diane Abbott8:09

or a teacher.

Diane Abbott8:11

Tell me about your next piece of music now.

Diane Abbott8:13

My next piece of music is The Beatles. And it just brings back to me all the

Diane Abbott8:20

the hope and the energy of the early sixties.

Speaker 48:28

You say you will love me if I have to go

Speaker 48:35

You'll be thinking of me Somehow I will know

Speaker 48:42

Someday when I'm lonely, Wishing you weren't so far away, Then I will remember things we said today

Presenter8:55

The Beatles and things we said today. You passed the Eleven Plus then, Diane, and you went to Harrow School for Girls. I mean, I'm sure that your parents were very proud, but what about you? Did did you feel at the time it was a moment of significance passing that exam? Well, I thought it was very significant.

Diane Abbott9:10

I had this

Diane Abbott9:12

remarkably ugly uniform, a sort of navian navy in pink and a felt hat in the winter.

Diane Abbott9:20

and a straw boater in the summer and'cause I still was wearing all these plaits and things. I was always losing my hats'cause they would just blow off. But I was so proud of my uniform, so proud of going to the school. It was sort of a big rite of passage going up to grammar school, yeah.

Presenter9:36

And it was clear by that stage that here was a very bright girl. I mean, did you find lessons uh easy?

Presenter9:43

Yeah.

Diane Abbott9:43

Well, yes. I mean, one of the things I've always been I was always good at was writing essays.

Diane Abbott9:48

And I was famous in my primary school for my essays. And I remember we were given an essay writing assignment, and at the second lesson, she read out the marks. She started at the top and went down to the bottom. She started with the A plus.

Diane Abbott10:01

A, A minor so she still hadn't called my name, so I was a bit surprised'cause I never got less than an A in my primary school and she read out everyone's name.

Diane Abbott10:10

And every one's great and not my name.

Diane Abbott10:12

So I went up to her afterwards and she had a desk which was on a kind of diaspora, about sort of six inches above, and she picked up the essay with her thumb and finger and she literally looked down on me and she said, where did you copy this essay? Because she could not believe that this chubby bespectacled black girl with her plaits in front of her could have written that essay. And I was mortified. And what happened actually, and it's interesting because I think it... I think a lot of children react to low expectations like that. I, in my mind, I didn't go home and complain to my parents, you know.

Diane Abbott10:47

I

Diane Abbott10:48

just for the remainder really of that year.

Diane Abbott10:51

Wrote down because I was frightened of being humili like that again. And it wasn't until my second year when I had.

Diane Abbott11:00

An English teacher who really believed in me that I was able to blossom again.

Presenter11:04

At what point in your schooling then did you start to think, and your teachers start to think, this girl is Oxbridge material?

Diane Abbott11:09

They never thought that actually. Um, it was a girls' grammar school and there was a very strong culture of achievement and so on. But I remember it was quite difficult to organise doing Oxford and Cambridge entrants from state schools in those days.

Diane Abbott11:24

And so when I went to my history teacher,

Diane Abbott11:27

and told her that I wanted to do the Oxford and Cambridge Entrance exam.

Diane Abbott11:32

She looked at me. She paused.

Diane Abbott11:35

And she said,

Diane Abbott11:36

I don't think you're up to it.

Diane Abbott11:38

And then I said something which really was absolutely faithful. But I looked at her and I said, without skipping a beat, But I do, and that's what matters.

Diane Abbott11:50

Now no one I know stayed at school past sixteen, I'd only got Oxford and Cambridge, but I just got the idea in my head that I was gonna go there and nobody told me that working class girls, let alone black working class girls, didn't go to Oxford or Cambridge. I didn't know, so I went for it. Tell me about your next piece of music then.

Diane Abbott12:09

On my next piece of music is the first record I ever bought, and it's a record by The Temptations, and it's called Ain't Too Proud to Beg. And Motown, and all those Motown artists, they were.

Diane Abbott12:22

For me, sort of your first positive images of black people who were glamorous and had lovely hair and lovely clothes. And I love the music, I love it still.

Speaker 412:34

But I refuse to let you go home.

Speaker 412:38

If I have to beg, please, for your sympathy I don't mind, cause you mean that much to me. If you have a bed, has me no

Speaker 412:50

He's gonna leave me, girl.

Speaker 412:53

Ain't you proud to pull baby, baby? Please don't be

Presenter13:01

The Temptations and Ain't Too Proud to Beg you say the first record you ever bought, Diana. But so let's talk about Cambridge. Let's talk about the image you had of these romantic students with the billowing college scarves and the wonderful honeyed architecture. You got there. Did the fantasy match the reality?

Presenter13:19

It did.

Diane Abbott13:20

Bots

Presenter13:21

Yeah.

Diane Abbott13:22

Um, not for the first time in my life, I thought

Diane Abbott13:25

Oh my goodness, what are you doing here? And the first sort of terms, I seem to spend all my time alone in my room, my little gas fire, eating toast,'cause that's all I could afford.

Diane Abbott13:36

Yeah.

Presenter13:36

It's I mean, did that make you I I don't want to use the word depressed'cause I'm sure that would be overregging it, but were you down in the dumps?

Presenter13:43

Yeah.

Presenter13:44

Pressed, but

Diane Abbott13:44

But I was alone in my room with my gas fire eating toast. But you know, it was the making of me in a way, because it was the first in a series of

Diane Abbott13:57

British

Diane Abbott13:59

Establishment institutions that I had to deal with and

Diane Abbott14:05

Ever afterwards I have always felt that I'm as good as anybody else.

Diane Abbott14:14

And if you're black and female, that's quite an important sense to have. I mean, the odds against me going in were impossible odds, and it helped I didn't know they were impossible odds, but it left me ever afterwards not afraid to take on impossible odds.

Presenter14:29

Unlike many MPs, you have had a very varied working life. You spent a while at T VAM, you worked for a time at Lambeth Council. That was during what was dubbed by the newspapers as their Looney Left days. But I want to ask you about joining the civil service.

Presenter14:43

What do you remember of particularly your interview I'm interested in?

Diane Abbott14:46

Well I'll never forget it. It took place in a room off Admiralty Arch and I wore

Diane Abbott14:54

A blue flowery frilly small.

Diane Abbott14:57

and I had a long row of blue plastic beads.

Diane Abbott15:01

and my hair was all in curls. At important moments in my life, I can always remember what my hair looked like. So my hair was all in these sort of bouncy curls. So I got to this huge civil service building and there was this big room and a big round table with five very serious people. And the chair was Dame Mary Warner.

Diane Abbott15:18

So I sat down in my frilly smock and my beads and my curly hair

Diane Abbott15:23

And Mary Warnock leaned forward and said to me, Why do you want to become a civil servant? So I sat up straight, all my curls bubbled, and I said, Because I want power. And all of them kind of sat back in their chest because it was such a contrast. But I got to know Mary Warnock's son afterwards, and he said that she said that that was the right answer.

Presenter15:46

Tell me about your next choice of music, then.

Diane Abbott15:49

Oh, my next track is Bogmarley.

Diane Abbott15:53

He's an iconic Jamaican figure and I've chosen his album Exodus which came out around the same time.

Diane Abbott16:01

of the Brixton riots in the early 80s and I was very active in the black community around that time and around the time of the riots and there's no doubt in my mind that the kind of political shockwaves that were set off by the Brixton and the Toxteth and that whole political insurgency helped create the climate where a few years later I could become elected an MP.

Speaker 416:23

Get Seed Us!

Speaker 416:30

Come to people.

Speaker 416:32

Oh yeah.

Speaker 416:38

Men and people will fight it down, tell me when you see each other like

Speaker 416:45

Let me tell you if you're not wrong, then why?

Presenter16:50

Bob Marley and Exodus. Let's talk a little more then about those riots back in nineteen eighty one, Diane. And you said that it was because of those riots that latterly you were enabled, along with three other people, it was Paul Botan, Keith Faz, Bernie Grant, to be elected as the first black MPs in Britain, this small but significant wave of MPs. What do you think it was about those riots that enabled that flowering?

Diane Abbott17:17

There were three things that happened. The first was my parents had been born in Jamaica.

Diane Abbott17:24

And in their minds they were always going back. Actually both of them died here, but my generation knew we were here to stay. So it was a gen it was a generational change. It was also the case that the Labour Party had moved to the Left, and black representation was very much something which the Left took up.

Diane Abbott17:40

But thirdly,

Diane Abbott17:42

The riots had a seismic effect at the time. Black people were very much on the margins of British society and then suddenly you had these television pictures of British cities burning because black people are taken to the streets and issues about black representation very much came to the fore.

Presenter18:00

I wonder how radical or radicalized you felt, because up until then, this was a very conventional life that you had led. You had um been smart enough to get yourself to grammar school, you had then propelled yourself to Cambridge, you'd taken uh the interviews and exams to get into the civil service. I mean this

Presenter18:17

To me doesn't look like somebody who was particularly radicalised.

Diane Abbott18:20

Oh, well, I'd always had a sort of twin track um existence and uh

Diane Abbott18:27

When I came down from Cambridge and and was in the civil service,

Diane Abbott18:31

I straightway found black campaigns to be active in. I can remember being in back rooms in Brixton planning demonstrations and strikes and so on. So I always had this twin track existence by day, a respectable civil servant by night.

Presenter18:48

A black activist.

Diane Abbott18:49

Yeah.

Presenter18:49

Yeah.

Presenter18:49

I want to ask you for a moment about currently the situation in your constituency. As I say, you've been the MP for Hackney for more than twenty years, just over twenty years now. It is a place when for the people who don't live there, when they read it in the headlines, when they hear it on the news, it is in parts, specific parts, riven with gang culture, with knife crime.

Diane Abbott19:12

Uh

Presenter19:12

Yeah.

Diane Abbott19:12

with this stuff on Hackney. You know, I live there. I've lived there, you know, for twenty years. The people that assume that, like my own home secretary, Jackie Smith, that it's some terrible, frightening place that you can't step out after dark, are by and large people that don't know it.

Presenter19:30

But you you're the mother of a young black boy, you know, growing up in his teenage years. I can't imagine that there aren't parts of Hackney that you wouldn't say to him, just steer clear of, because you will know, as I well know, that he is many times more likely to be attacked, to be knifed, as a young black boy living in certain and travelling through certain parts of Hackney than the rest of us living and enjoying our civilized existence in London.

Diane Abbott19:52

There is an issue about young men of whatever colour in the inner city.

Diane Abbott19:57

there's an element of risk there. But the parts of London I wouldn't I would

Diane Abbott20:01

Warn him about walking around.

Diane Abbott20:06

Oh, my next choice is by a current Jamaican artist, Budgie Banson, and it's driver A. I love Jamaica.

Diane Abbott20:14

And I fell in love not with the beaches and the palm trees, which is what most people think of when they think of the Caribbean, but it's it's got beautiful green hills.

Diane Abbott20:23

And the people and my family, and at moments of stress and tribulation in my life, I've gone back.

Diane Abbott20:29

to Jamaica and been enfolded in the arms of my family and in the beauty of the island and come back here refreshed and rejuvenated. I went there when my son was eight weeks old and spent the best Christmas I've ever spent. I went there when I was being abused daily in the papers for sending him to a private school and

Diane Abbott20:48

and came back, you know.

Diane Abbott20:50

happy and and and at peace. I was able to take my mother there when she was dying of cancer for one last visit.

Diane Abbott20:57

And that was a lovely visit, although very moving. So I love Jamaica. I mean, Bougie's a slightly controversial artist'cause he's done some stupid homophobic stuff. But this song very much for me conveys urban Jamaica.

Speaker 321:12

A wire card is on the road for me. And don't take no time from nobody. Just do what we tell the videos, see, stand, and make sure that everything works account to all man's everything for work, see?

Speaker 421:14

Uh

Diane Abbott21:14

And don't Uh

Speaker 421:14

Uh

Diane Abbott21:14

Okay, look.

Speaker 321:21

Take back yourself and bring back yourself in a one please. Make sure she's ready. Hear me?

Speaker 321:26

Lord of Mercy.

Speaker 321:28

Hey, Loud of his mercy, Loud of mercy, Johnny Bob.

Speaker 321:34

Coast Abatal, travels Arizona Rona Albemarle, driver.

Presenter21:40

Buju Banton and Driver A. And you mentioned going into that the difficult situations that you've often faced and returning to Jamaica again and again for visits has been restorative. And one of the things you mentioned was what I expect was an incredibly difficult decision that you made, the decision to send your son to a private school and there was huge criticism around that.

Diane Abbott22:00

Yes, I mean really it was quite straightforward. I had to choose between my son and my good name.

Diane Abbott22:06

And I chose my son. And if I had to take the decision again, I would make the same decision. I'll say one thing though. The story broke on in the mail on Sunday. So I woke up on a Sunday morning and I had this heart-stopping experience. And then I looked out of the window and there was a kind of massed Fleet Street photographers outside and they stayed there all day. And that's a terrible feeling because there's no back gate to come out of. So I really felt under siege. And also I had to be very calm, I didn't want my son to be upset.

Diane Abbott22:38

One of the first people, though, who rang me that day was Harriet Holman.

Diane Abbott22:44

who had also been through a similar thing,'cause she sent her child not to a s fee paying school but to a grammar school. And she rang me, she's the first person to ring me and she said, You know, I've read the story and I do understand. And she also said something else,'cause one of the things I've campaigned on a lot is this issue of black children failing in school, particularly black boys, and something I've campaigned on for

Diane Abbott23:05

years and she said, Whatever you do,

Diane Abbott23:08

Don't stop your campaigning about black boys and underachievement, because if you don't do it, nobody else will do it.

Presenter23:14

I mean, the fact that she phoned you is doubly extraordinary because you had been very clear in your criticism of her.

Diane Abbott23:18

No, no, that's the thing, that's why I said it,'cause she would never have rung me. I mean, people said, Oh, I you know, I said this.

Presenter23:25

I said that. Didn't you? You didn't say she made the Labour Party look as if we do one thing and say another. You didn't say that about her. I said that, but.

Diane Abbott23:31

I said it in a context which made it clear that I wasn't attacking her right to send her child where she wanted to. I wasn't one of the people who was in the forefront of attacking Harriet, and she knew it. That's the point. That

Presenter23:46

That's why she called me. How difficult is it when one is making such a decision and has worked as hard as you have worked as a politician? I mean, was that literally sitting up through the night? Did you discuss it with people? Or was it just a decision you knew you had to make and not much thought beyond that went into it?

Diane Abbott24:04

My family comes from rural Jamaica, and in rural Jamaica, we know that when it comes to it, when push comes to shove, nothing, nothing is more important than your children. That's who I am.

Diane Abbott24:14

And in that sense, it was a very straightforward decision.

Presenter24:17

This one.

Presenter24:18

And when people say it's hypocritical, and if you're a hypocritical politician, you're not a politician that we can trust, how do you reply to that?

Presenter24:27

A lot of people

Diane Abbott24:28

What the issue?

Diane Abbott24:30

As an excuse.

Diane Abbott24:32

To have a go.

Diane Abbott24:34

And when you look at how long all of this went on and when you look at how personal it was, you have to say that a lot of people had been waiting for an opportunity to kind of vent. People have to judge me

Diane Abbott24:47

for who I am and what I've stood up for.

Diane Abbott24:49

That's all I can say.

Presenter24:51

Tell me about your next

Diane Abbott24:51

It's a piece of music, then.

Diane Abbott24:55

Oh gosh, my next piece of music is Things Could Only Get Better.

Diane Abbott24:59

I'm not saying I pled a lot on my desert island, but I, you know, I have to have it because it sums up a whole period of my life.

Presenter25:06

And this was of course, in case people could ever forget, this was the song from 1997 when Labour was riding that tidal wave of victory.

Diane Abbott25:15

Certainly until I had my son, the Labour Party really was my life. And I well remember the the night of the 97 election.

Diane Abbott25:24

And it was, I mean, you know, it was the most moving moment. You can't forget it.

Speaker 425:51

No matter what

Presenter25:58

DeReem, and things can only get better and vivid memories, as you describe them, of uh your day of um elation that morning as Tony Blair came out through the the dawn sky and and the beginning of a new political era. That was ten years ago, and as you say, you'd spent ten years in opposition prior to that with a hard political slog.

Presenter26:18

Ten years on of being in Para, you m you must surely feel a sense of deflation. It's a lot harder than people thought it might be.

Presenter26:28

Why politics is

Diane Abbott26:28

It's a hard full stop. I mean, I'm a Labour Party person. I came into politics as somebody from a working class background.

Diane Abbott26:35

wanting to make the world a fairer place, to see a real r redistribution of wealth.

Diane Abbott26:42

To have peace and justice overseas. Now, you know, Tony Blair's achievement in bringing us back to power.

Diane Abbott26:49

was a massive, massive achievement. But anyone that's a Labour Party person must be a bit sad that after ten years, the gap between rich and poor was wider than ever and that we got entangled in an absolutely

Diane Abbott27:04

horrible, doomed, and actually illegal war in Iraq.

Presenter27:07

And that was a that was a war you voted against? You should

Diane Abbott27:09

Oh, sure, sure, sure. So, yeah, I mean

Diane Abbott27:14

What can I say?

Diane Abbott27:15

Politics, you have to take the long view in politics.

Diane Abbott27:18

But, you know, my concern remains what it's always been.

Diane Abbott27:22

Um, the people that

Diane Abbott27:24

don't have a voice. People like the kind of immigrant community I was brought up among.

Diane Abbott27:29

And people like the people I represent in Hackney and you just have to keep going and try and improve their lives in whatever way you can.

Diane Abbott27:37

Let's take a break for some music man. Tell me about

Presenter27:39

I'll let you next track.

Diane Abbott27:40

Oh, my next choice of music is Professor Music at the Guildhall Paul Roberts playing DeBoose's Reflections in the Water. Now, being in public life, I've been invited to do every single reality television show going, and I've turned them all down, thankfully. But I did succumb to doing a programme where I learned to play the piano. Absolutely from scratch. Absolutely from scratch. I mean, everyone always says, you know, black people, natural rhythm, all of that. No, not me. I had never played an instrument. I couldn't read music. I didn't sing in a choir. But it was a wonderful experience. I had a lot of help. I had my tutor, Paul Roberts, who's an absolutely brilliant pianist, but more than a brilliant pianist. He's such an enthusiast. And what he conveyed to me very early on was

Diane Abbott28:26

The love of the music. This is the first thing he ever played me, and this is my favourite.

Presenter29:27

Paul Roberts, playing DeLucie's Reflections in the Water. So as well as your Westminster career, Diane, you are a regular now on the politics show this week with the former Tory Minister Michael Pertiller. I suppose it must seem rather easy compared to Westminster, being in a television studio and using your intelligence and your wit. Do you enjoy it? It's quite straightforward.

Diane Abbott29:47

It's live on a Thursday night, so you just wander in about eleven o'clock.

Diane Abbott29:52

Eleven thirty five, your own air?

Diane Abbott29:54

Chat for an hour.

Diane Abbott29:56

Have a drink, go home. Easy peasy. One of the things having works in television taught me.

Diane Abbott30:01

was not to take it too seriously.

Diane Abbott30:03

It's only television. It doesn't matter. You know, that's that's my thing. And having worked behind the scenes in television all those years ago, I'm very, very clear about that. You know, next year People have forgot

Presenter30:17

Bottom ya. And what about the politics then? What about that young girl who sat there in her frilly floral blue dress with her curls bobbling in in front of the interview panel and said, I want this job because I want power. What about the power? Do you still want power?

Diane Abbott30:33

There's still a lot of things I want to change. I mean, you go around my constituency on some of these estates and you see people living in really grim conditions. There's still a lot of things I want to change. I'm privileged to be able to wake up in the morning, turn on the radio, hear some nonsense about how people can't walk around Hackney after dark, for instance, and say, not somebody should say something about that, but say to myself, I will say something about it. And that's it, really. It's a huge privilege to be a Member of Parliament. And I've always tried my very best. You can't say more than that.

Presenter31:03

Good place to tell me about your last piece of music then, what is it?

Diane Abbott31:06

Uh

Diane Abbott31:07

One of the great victories for the left in my lifetime has been the victory of the ANC in South Africa. And one of the most moving things I ever did was to be an observer at those very first elections when Nelson Mandela came to power. And I remember going out to Soweto very early in the morning, around five in the morning really, but there were queues of people outside the polling stations who'd been queuing for hours.

Diane Abbott31:39

And

Diane Abbott31:39

When they actually were allowed to go in and vote, and a lot of them, even as they stood in front of the box about to vote, looked round in case even at that point some white policeman or something would say, no, not you, you're not allowed to vote, then they cast their vote. It was the most moving thing. And this song, I first heard it at a demonstration, I think, against apartheid back in the 80s. And I thought it was a moving and beautiful song then. And I think it's a moving and beautiful song now.

Speaker 432:08

Corn See God left.

Speaker 432:14

Manu Pala Nezo Tumoraio.

Speaker 432:25

Go see now, si le sapoloayo gos.

Presenter32:37

Lady Smith Black Mambazzo singing the South African national anthem Cose Sikalele ya Afrika. Um I'm going to give you the Bible, of course, and the complete works of Shakespeare, and you, Diane, can take another book. What would you like to take?

Presenter32:50

I want to take a book.

Diane Abbott32:52

called the Survey of London.

Diane Abbott32:55

The project's been going for a century, but it's a very detailed historical.

Diane Abbott33:00

and architectural survey of London. It literally deals with

Diane Abbott33:04

things house by house. And I love London. I love London. I'm a very proud Londoner. And also it's forty five volumes long. So I think it would keep me occupied. So I want the survey of London. You may have it. And what luxury?

Diane Abbott33:17

Do you know, when you've brought up a toddler, the one thing you really appreciate is a good night's sleep. So what I would like is a really nice bed with a lovely fur mattress and beautiful sheets and possibly a change of sheets and a a mosquito net.

Presenter33:34

Above it, that would be my luxury. The full compliment. You can have that. And what about if the waves threaten to wash to the shore and take away your eight disks? Which one would you run through the sand to save?

Diane Abbott33:43

I

Presenter33:44

I think it would probably be the

Diane Abbott33:44

B

Diane Abbott33:45

the South African national anthem because

Diane Abbott33:48

Those issues have been at the heart of my politics.

Presenter33:52

for as long as I can remember.

Presenter33:54

Diane Abbott, thank you much for letting us view your desert island discs. Thank you.

Presenter34:05

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/radio4.