WATCH: Diane Abbott again struggles to explain Labour's policy on police numbers

John Ashmore

Diane Abbott has once again come unstuck on the details of how Labour would fund thousands of new police officers.



The Shadow Home Secretary came under fire during the election campaign for a number of faltering media performances, including an appearance on LBC radio where she put the cost of recruiting 10,000 new officers at just £300,000.

In a separate Sky News interview, she appeared to be trying to bluff her way through questioning about a major anti-terror report.

She was eventually forced to step down from her post and it was revealed that she suffered from diabetes, which had gone "out of control" during the frenetic campaigning period.

Ms Abbott returned to the role after the general election and has insisted that she is now back to full health.

However, she again came unstuck on Labour's policing policy while being interviewed by ITV News.

"What we’ve said is that we would find the money to recruit the 10,000 police people by cutting, we would find the money because we’d look at capital gains tax. The Tories have cut capital gains tax and we want to restore it," she said.

She then appeared to turn towards the interviewer for help, saying: "And that would give us, I think, 170…how..sorry. We would find the money by restoring levels of capital gains tax.

"We think that by restoring the cuts in capital gains tax that would find us another £300m a year."

However, the £300m figure cited by Ms Abbott is for a four-year recruitment period, rather than a single year.

Watch the full exchange here:

.@HackneyAbbott struggles again when questioned about police funding, having previously mixed up her numbers on @UKLabour's policy pic.twitter.com/Fy499kFprY — ITV News (@itvnews) July 20, 2017