In politics, the people I most despise are those who have no values.

- Diane Abbott

My mother liked Jim Reeves. I hated his records. He was unbearable.

- Diane Abbott

My father was a manual worker.

- Diane Abbott

I'm not thick-skinned at all, and of course I'm hurt by people attacking me as a person.

- Diane Abbott

I'm not the only Labour MP who sent their child to public school but I'm the only one who's questioned about it.

- Diane Abbott

I spend a lot of time visiting local organisations.

- Diane Abbott

You learn from mistakes.

- Diane Abbott

My family were from Jamaica.

- Diane Abbott

It's very lonely bringing up a child on your own.

- Diane Abbott

I wanted my marriage to work, but it didn't.

- Diane Abbott

I want to write a best-selling book.

- Diane Abbott

Because when you watch U.S. television, all the presenters and reporters, they're all out of central casting.

- Diane Abbott

Abortion is an issue of conscience for the Labour party.

- Diane Abbott

The honest truth is that if this government were to propose the massacre of the first-born, it would still have no difficulty in getting it through the Commons.

- Diane Abbott

My London constituency in Hackney has one of the highest levels of gun crime in the country. But the problem is no longer confined to inner city areas. Gun crime has spread to communities all over Britain.

- Diane Abbott

I knew what could happen to my son if he was sent to the wrong school and got in with the wrong crowd.

- Diane Abbott

Finally, there's a sense in which I look at this Westminster village and London intelligentsia as an outsider.

- Diane Abbott

My forebears refused to cut the sugar cane for plantation owners, and I am recognisably a product of that background.

- Diane Abbott

I believe every abortion is a tragedy.

- Diane Abbott

Gun crime is a major cause of fear and distress throughout the UK. The problem is deeply entrenched in a wide range of social and cultural factors and therefore not an isolated issue.

- Diane Abbott