Diane Abbott makes bid for Labour leadership

Britain’s first Black woman MP has just joined the leadership contest, annoucing her intentions on BBC Radio 4 about an hour ago.

There’s a piece about it on BBC online here.

After an election campaign that was dominated by white men, Diane’s bid will come as a refresher for some, just for its change of face.

Ms Abbott, the Hackney North and Stoke Newington MP who in recent years has been a fixture on the BBC’s This Week programme, said: “We need to speak to our supporters and speak to our members in a way that we are not speaking to them up until now.”

She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme she was “attracting support not just from the Left but from women and other MPs that want to see a more diverse range of candidates”.

At the general election, Ms Abbott increased her constituency majority to 14,461, with a swing to Labour from the Liberal Democrats.

Update: Operation Black Vote came out in favour of the bid on Comment is Free last night.

Just a reminder, the other candidates (all men) are: Ed Balls, Andy Burnham, John McDonnell, David Miliband and Ed Miliband. Harriet Harman and Yvette Cooper have ruled themselves out.

The announcement is already on Wikipedia!