Diane Abbott replaced as Labour`s shadow home secretary

Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott, who has suffered a series of car-crash radio interviews, is stepping aside from her role – less than 24 hours before the general election.

Labour Party officials have cited “a period of ill health” as the reason for being temporarily replaced by Shadow Policing Minister Lyn Brown.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn announced the move on Wednesday morning (June 7) a day after his key ally had pulled out of an appearance on Radio 4`s Women`s Hour and a hustings debate organised by the Evening Standard.

The move follows widespread criticism of Ms Abbott’s performance in a Sky News interview on Monday when she struggled to recall the contents of a major report on counter-terror policing.

Speaking to reporters on the Labour battle bus on Tuesday Mr Corbyn refused to say whether Ms Abbott would be given the job of Home Secretary if Labour won on Thursday. He said only that she had done “a good job” but was “not well today”.

He noted that she had faced “an awful lot of very unfair criticism and abuse in the past”.

The news came as an email prankster cast doubt on Labour’s explanation for Ms Abbott missing the hustings in London and a head-to-head with Tory counterpart Amber Rudd on Woman’s Hour

Posing as Labour’s director of strategy and communications Seumas Milne, he asked Ms Abbott to reveal her illness to combat speculation she was being sidelined because of poor performance.

She appears to have replied: “I am worried about telling untruths about my health that can be easily disproved.”

Ms Abbott was pictured on her phone at London’s Oxford Circus Tube station on Tuesday, 20 minutes before the radio debate was due to start at the BBC studios a short walk away. She was replaced in the 9am slot by shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry, with Labour tweeting: “Diane Abbott has had to pull out of Woman’s Hour because of illness.”

Earlier in the campaign she had failed to recall the cost to hire 10,000 additional police officers during an interview with LBC radio to announce the policy.

Ms Abbott suggested that her party would recruit either 25,000 or 250,000 officers a year, a move which she initially claimed would cost £300,000 a year, before increasing her estimation to what translated into a salary of £8,000.

She went on to claim that she had done seven interviews that morning and had provided the correct figures.

Her spokesperson said: “Ms Abbott will not be talking about her health at this time. There can be no more distractions from the real issues of this general election.

“Ms Abbott will be joining Labour party colleagues to get the vote out on Thursday.”

Ms Abbott was stoutly defended by one of her Cabinet colleagues, Shadow Justice Secretary Richard Burgeon.

He told BBC Radio5Live that voters were not interested in whether politicians “can memorise 150 figures” before doing TV or radio interviews, adding: “I think the media sometimes needs a reality check.

“Unlike MPs, unlike local activists, unlike local councillors, you don’t have the opportunity to be knocking on doors regularly and seeing what people have to say…They don’t run through a kind of exam question scenario with candidates about ‘can you name exactly how much this figure is’.

“They know it`s costed and they know what society needs.”

Interviewer Emma Barnett got a frosty response from Mr Burgon who added: “In relation to the example you gave of Diane Abbott misspeaking on the amount of money it costs to recruit the 10,000 police officers, she had 50 interviews that day and in one interview misspoke the figure. She said £300,000 when she meant £300 million.”

Ms Brown, 57, was first appointed to Labour`s shadow home affairs team when Mr Corbyn named his first frontbenchers in 2015.

But she was among a number of MPs who quit the following year following a vote of no confidence in his leadership, adding Labour should seek a new head “for the good of the party and the country”.

She rejoined the front bench three months lat