Diane Abbott

“Tackling childhood obesity is key.”

“You learn from mistakes.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I'm a West Indian mum and West Indian mums will go to the wall for their children.”

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

“I want to write a best-selling book.”

“You can't defend the indefensible - anything you say sounds self-serving and hypocritical.”

“I spend a lot of time visiting local organisations.”

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

“My family were from Jamaica.”

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

“Outsiders often have an insight that an insider doesn't quite have.”

“When fast food is not a treat but a dietary staple, the children surf the internet all day in dark corners of the room and are bombarded with latest gadgets. Things replace parental standards.”

“Mental health is often missing from public health debates even though it's critical to wellbeing.”

“Abortion is an issue of conscience for the Labour party.”

“In Parliament we debate on and we decide the laws that are going to govern the country.”

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