Fiona Bruce addresses Diane Abbott ‘Question Time’ controversy

Fiona Bruce has finally addressed the criticism received about Diane Abbott’s appearance on Question Time – but if you were hoping for an apology, you might be left disappointed.

The conversation began last Thursday (17th January) when Labour MP Diane Abbott featured on the BBC politics programme panel. As well as being frequently interrupted, Diane Abbott was corrected by Bruce on poll information that suggested that Labour were either ahead or tied with the Conservative party. Though it was made out that Abbott was completely incorrect in her information, it was soon discovered that there were multiple polls available, and the one Abbott was referring to validated her statement.

However, on last night’s episode (Thursday 25th January), Fiona Bruce ‘clarified’ the situation with a statement, claiming that it was a simple misunderstanding.

‘On the day of the programme, the Conservatives were ahead,’ she began the 19-second clip. ‘The Shadow Secretary mentioned some other earlier polls which showed Labour were in the lead and we should’ve made that context clear and I’m really happy to do that now.’

Bruce, who according to some commenters, was smirking, then swiftly moved onto the next topic.

On a post on the BBC’s corrections and clarifications page, they admitted before the programme aired that the poll information should’ve been made a lot clearer.

It was also reported by members of the audience that Fiona Bruce had made inappropriate jokes about Abbott’s relationship with Jeremy Corbyn during the warm-up. This caused outrage on social media and within the Labour Party, who demanded the BBC formally make an apology and release the pre-show warm-up footage.

Prior to the programme, Labour’s press team tweeted that they expected Question Time to correct their false claim. However, some viewers didn’t feel that it was addressed correctly by Fiona Bruce and once again took to Twitter to voice their concerns.

One user called it ‘rushed’ and ‘insincere’, while senior psychologist Guilaine Kinouani described Bruce’s words as a ‘non-apology apology and non-correction correction’. It’s highly unlikely that that Diane Abbott will receive any sort of apology following this – but one can still hope.

Last week, Diane Abbott tweeted that during the recording, she felt that Bruce was ‘clearly repeating Tory propaganda’ and the show was ‘legitimising racism’. Sadly, Diane Abbott is no stranger to racist behaviour and in September 2017, it emerged from Amnesty International that Abbott alone, received almost half of all the abusive tweets sent to female MPs in the run-up to the general election and much of that was racist and sexist.

Dianne Abbott was the first black female MP in the UK when she was elected in 1987 as Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington. It’s disheartening to see how a woman who has been in politics for 35 years is still facing issues like this now. What does that say about Britain today?