Diane denies intern allegations

On Saturday Blood and Property reported that a new hypocrisy claim had been made about Diane Abbott: that she may have as many as 10 unpaid interns and that this would conflict with her principles on employers paying for work done.

A response was sent by a member of her leadership bid team which denies the claim:

"At the moment, Diane has no unpaid interns. The allegation that she has 'nearly 10' is completely untrue. Her last intern was paid the minimum wage. You will notice that the accusation made of Diane in the blog postings are completely unsubstantiated.

"I would suggest that other people working in Portcullis House, where many MPs have offices, may have tallied the number of different non-pass-holders entering her office and assumed that they were all interns. Diane has a more diverse range of staff and guests than most MPs, so the people at her office are noticeable.

"Diane does have several people volunteering for her leadership campaign (some of whom come to see her at parliamentary office for reasons of convenience). Her leadership campaign must be funded and staffed independently of her parliamentary expenses and volunteers work out of her campaign office in Hampsted on a day-to-day basis.

"I hope this answers your question."

Thanks for the swift reply and yes, that answers the question.

Diane in new hypocrisy claim? Unpaid interns

Interns Anonymous has reported that Labour leadership contenders will sign a petition from InternAware to force employers to pay interns a minimum wage... but they don't except Diane Abbott to be one of them.

According to Interns Anonymous, Diane may have several unpaid interns working for her. The site claimed to have spoken to one who had worked, unpaid, for 18 months before getting a job.

Interns Anonymous said: "Real justice there Diane, you hypocrite."

I'm waiting to see if Diane has a response to these allegations - but I've only just emailed her to find out.

Diane has campaigned on employment issues.

In this statement to the Unions she said:

"Ensuring we have a living wage is extremely important. Working hard should mean being able to provide for your family and lead a decent standard of living – not living on the breadline.

"Implementing a living wage doesn't only benefit the employees. It improves staff loyalty and boosts morale, and therefore productivity. It also reduces training and recruitment costs, which is overall better value for money for employers.

"I would support introducing legislation to ensure that government tenders are not able to be taken up by contractors who are not prepared to pay a living wage to their staff.

"As a party, we must lead by example and those who are not willing to offer a decent wage for a decent day’s work, should not benefit from government contracts.

Here is an old advert for an unpaid internship in Diane's office: http://www.w4mp.org/html/personnel/jobs/disp_job.asp?ref=15020

It said: "Some of the work will be interesting, while some of it will be more mundane."
It also asked for: "Excellent IT and communication skills."

Despite being boring and requiring excellent skills, the advert said the internship: "is voluntary and will not be used to cover duties otherwise performed by a paid employee."

Interns Anonymous has a picture of Labour Candidate Andy Burnham holding up a signed pledge. This appears to come from a campaign called Intern Aware that is also endorsed by Labour Students and the media union Bectu.

The picture is on InternAware's blog which lists organisations and individuals who oppose unpaid internships including Barack Obama and the IPPR.

According to the site, the Low Pay Commission reported in March that “growing evidence of abuse” exists with a “growing number of people undertaking ‘work’ but excluded from the minimum wage. It said there are "tens of thousands of people with the talent to become leaders in these fields. However, their chances of success are limited because they can’t afford to work for free."

Last year Interns Anonymous reported on Tory MP Philip Hammond, now Secretary of State for Transport. Hammond replied that it would be a waste of taxpayers money to pay people to do work that could be done for free.

Other news:

The Daily Mail reports on Hackney Council's £400,000 taxi cab bill - I was sure I'd seen a very similar story to this somewhere else in the last couple of weeks, but can't remember where.