Students ask Diane Abbott for their money back

 
23 August 2013

Anti-tuiton fees Labour MP Diane Abbott passionately argues that students shouldn’t be burdened with crippling levels of debt, so some critics are puzzled why she continues to charge to speak to undergraduates.

Earlier this year she was paid £1,000 to speak at Manchester Metropolitan University. Now undergraduates at Birmingham University have started a petition calling for Abbott to give back the £1,750 she was paid in 2011 to speak at the Department of Political Science and International Studies for just 50 minutes. The petition argues that charging so much money is “a gross insult to all British students. This could have paid for half a year’s tuition at the time, which calls into question her opposition to tuition fees.”

The payment only came to light this week. David H Dunn, who runs the department, points out in Abbott’s defence that “other speakers who were suggested charged more. Jon Snow charged £7,000 and Karren Brady charged £12,000. Diane Abbott looked cheap by comparison.”

Over to Abbott. She says the petition relates to a particular conference two years ago.

“The idea that I routinely charge to speak to students is quite wrong,” she tells me. “The opposite is the case. I routinely speak at student, community and political events for free. This year alone I have spoken at nearly 70 such events.”

Abbott has already dropped strong hints that she’s planning to run for London Mayor in 2016. Let’s hope she wins back the student vote in time.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in