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Diane Abbott has been slammed for an “embarrassing” car-crash interview after she appeared to stumble over the cost of Labour policies live on national radio.

The Shadow Home Secretary floundered when asked the details of a newly-launched Labour Party plan to introduce an extra 10,000 police officers onto the country’s streets.

Stumbling over the figures live on radio station LBC, Ms Abbott appeared flummoxed about how much the thousands of extra officers would cost.

At first she quotes the figure at just £300,000 – which would work out at a wage of just £30 for each officer.

When queried by presenter Nick Ferrari, the Hackney North and Stoke Newington MP revised the cost to £80 million – which would still see the extra officers paid a yearly salary of just £8,000.

Ms Abbott first began to flail with the figures when asked how much the Labour policy would cost.

She told the morning radio show: “Well if we recruit the 10,000 police men and women over a four year period, we believe it will be about £300,000.”

When the figure was queried, Ms Abbott clarified: “No, I mean, sorry. They will cost, they will, it will cost about, about £80 million.

“We get to that figure because we anticipate recruiting 25,000 extra police officers a year at least over a period of four years.

“We are looking at both what average police wages are generally but also specifically police wages in London.”

On social media many listeners hit out at the politician, calling her interview a “car-crash” and a boost to the Tories’ election campaign.

Ex-LBC journalist and current BBC Newsnight producer Matthew Harris said: “Lesson for politicians: If you get interviewed by Nick Ferrari make sure your sums add up. Total car crash for Diane Abbott here on LBC.”

Gillaine Chipolina said on Twitter: “Me thinks Diane Abbott wishes she’d pulled a sickie and stayed in bed this morning.”

Another Twitter user, Phil Beeson said: “Jeremy Corbyn: “Note to self: never let Diane Abbott on the radio again with any figures”. That interview was embarrassing.”

Under the plan, announced today by Labour, the money would come by reversing the cuts to Capital Gains Tax.

During today's LBC show, Nick Ferrari told Ms Abbott: “I don’t understand. If you divide £80 million by 10,000, you get £8,000. Is that what you’re going to pay these policemen?”

But Ms Abbott replied: “No, we are talking about, um, er, a process over four years.”

When Mr Ferrari repeated the question, Ms Abbott momentarily falls silent and the sound of rustling paper can be heard.

Ms Abbott eventually laid out Labour’s correct spending plans for the extra officers, running up to around £300 million a year.

Appearing on Sky News, Mr Corbyn later defended her, saying: “She corrected the figure and that’s the figure and it will be paid for by not going ahead with the cuts in capital gains tax.”

Asked if it was embarrassing that Ms Abbott got the figures wrong, he said: “Not at all. We have corrected the figure and it will be absolutely clear now, today and in the manifesto.

“I’m not embarrassed in the slightest.”

A prominent group of Jeremy Corbyn campaigners on Twitter, who run the account Jeremy Corbyn for PM, defended Ms Abbott and said she "was clear on our fully costed proposal. Well said Diane."