One Diane is quite enough

I'm a big supporter of having a more diverse PLP, and particularly of improving on the current derisory number of BME women MPs.

However, I'm not sure that Jackie Ashley's call for Parliament to have more Diane Abbotts will aid the cause of BME women's representation.

Diane has a unique set of qualities as a politician - but they are her personal qualities, not ones that apply to every BME woman.

We need ethnic minority women MPs from all wings of the Labour Party, rebels and loyalists, media stars and conscientious constituency campaigners, loud and quiet. We particularly need BME women MPs with an approach to politics that, in contrast to Diane's self-created role as the perpetual outsider and oppositionalist, will see them become Whips and Ministers and involved in creating policy, not protesting about it.

To her credit, Diane is actually pretty supportive of BME candidates who don't share her style or politics - she backed David Lammy who was obviously the New Labour candidate in the Tottenham by-election selection because she wanted to see a bright young Afro-Caribbean man get into Parliament even if he didn't share her politics - though she doesn't extend this to Trevor Phillips who she had a go at at our GC when he came up for reselection to the GLA a few years back.

There are quite a few excellent BME women trying to get selected this time round - people like Dora Dixon-Fyle from Southwark, Sonika Nirwal from Ealing, and Nargis Khan from my own borough. I think they'd all be a bit put out by Jackie Ashley trying to define them as extra Diane Abbotts. Diane Abbott might not be too happy either.