Diane Abbott squirms as she desperately defends 'disrespectful' Bercow bullying tweet

Diane Abbott fiercely defended her tweet regarding David Leakey’s claim that he was bullied by Mr Bercow. In a post on social media, which has since been deleted, Ms Abbott said regarding the bullying allegations: “Allegations come from the former parliamentary official David Leakey. He had been a Lieutenant General who served in Germany, Northern Ireland and Bosnia. But claims he was bullied i.e intimidated and coerced by John Bercow. Unlikely.”

Sky News’s Dermot Murnaghan quizzed the Labour Shadow Home Secretary on her tweet.

He said: “On the whole John Bercow thing, you mentioned David Leakey could not be bullied because he had been in the army or in the military.

“Do you regret that now and do you accept that anyone can be bullied?”

Ms Abbott replied: “I didn’t say he couldn’t be bullied and the Labour Party takes it extremely seriously and I know it is surprising that he didn’t raise these things when he was working for John Bercow but I certainly didn’t say that he couldn’t be bullied.”

READ MORE: John Bercow accuses Brexiteers of being a ‘bigot faction’ 

Mr Murnaghan said: “But you deleted the tweet pretty quickly.

“Do you accept that even somebody in the military can be bullied?”

The Labour MP responded: “Anybody can be bullied but I certainly did not say that he could not be bullied because he had been in the military.”

Ms Abbott’s tweet received an immediate backlash on Twitter. 

Dave Penman, the general secretary of the FDA union tweeted: “Indeed Diane – faced with an abusive boss, we often advise members to deploy military self-defence tactics. What a ridiculous comment from an experienced MP, demonstrating blind political partisanship and a complete failure to understand how power is abused in the workplace.”

Isabel Hardman, presenter of Radio 4’s Week in Westminster wrote: “This is staggeringly disrespectful to all victims of abuse and coercion.

“If Diane genuinely thinks that to be a victim of bullying or abuse you have to be obviously a bit weak, then she needs to start again with understanding these things.”

The BBC Political Editor Laura Kuenssberg labelled the Shadow Home Secretary’s response to the allegations as “beyond the pale”.

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