After listening to the radio I go online. Before I was an MP I was a television journalist; now I’m an absolute news junkie. I’ll skim The Guardian, BBC Online, Independent, Telegraph and Times. If I have time I potter about in my garden. I have a cup of tea before I leave and then a slice of toast when I get to Westminster.
I leave the house at the same time as my 14-year-old son, James, although there’s always that last-minute “Where are my swimming trunks?” or “Can I have money for this?” It takes me longer to get ready than I think.
I set off between 8 and 9 o’clock. I live in Hackney, so I get the bus to Liverpool Street and then the Tube. On the bus I invariably see someone looking at me and thinking: “Is that Diane Abbott?” But generally people are very British and ignore me, which is good.
I get into the office and put on News 24. There’s a pile of post to tackle, which takes an hour. The big improvement in my life recently has been my BlackBerry, which allows me to check my e-mails throughout the day. I do have a mobile phone but it’s usually switched off. I don’t like being too contactable. I have never had a pager – the idea of being so easily reached by the Labour party is just too ghastly. The good thing about a BlackBerry is you can read a message and pretend that you haven’t seen it.
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I work in the House of Commons library. I’ve really come round to the peace and quiet. I go there to prepare speeches, or draft articles and letters. If there’s a debate in the afternoon that I’m interested in, I go to the library to brief myself. Other mornings I may have meetings with constituents or lobbyists. Being a back-bench MP is like being a small entrepreneur. On Friday mornings I give an advice session in the constituency, which is like being a counsellor. You end up hearing about everything that’s wrong with people’s lives. People often sit and cry and you just feel helpless. It can be very draining. In many ways, though, it’s the most rewarding part of the job, because at the very least people feel like they’ve had a hearing. For me, helping individuals is the most important part of being an MP.
Unless I have a work lunch, I eat at my desk. I always think I’m going to give myself a proper 45-minute break but it never works out. We have a good cafeteria in Portcullis House, where I work, so I have something healthy like a salad. By mid-afternoon, though, I fall victim to a carbohydrate low and end up having a buttered teacake in the members’ tearoom. I have good and bad de-stressing mechanisms, and going to the tearoom for a bacon sandwich is my bad one. My better one is listening to dance and soul music. Living in Hackney, you can have it on very loud and nobody’s bothered.
At 2.30pm we have parliamentary questions and then debates. Parliament is a little village, and just walking to the chamber I’ll meet three people and exchange news. It’s all “Have you heard…?” and “What do you think?” Gossip is the lifeblood of Westminster and it’s those informal interchanges in corridors or the lobbies that really make it tick. At the moment Westminster is in a very febrile state, so you’re constantly talking to people about when Blair is going and what Gordon is doing.
By 8 o’clock I can’t concentrate any more. The problem with the parliamentary day, though, is that you can’t go far from Westminster because you may be used to vote. So if I want to see my friends they have to come to me. We might have a drink on the terrace or in the Pugin Room, which is a rather refined bar. You can sit down and be served at your table. For supper I tend to have light food, like beans on toast.
If we have a 10 o’clock division then I’m out of work by half past 10. We can be there until midnight, though. On Thursdays I appear on the BBC’s This Week programme, which goes out live at half past 11. By the time I get to the studio I’m completely exhausted, but when Andrew Neil is firing questions at me I wake up. A lot of MPs get obsessed with their media image, but because I’ve worked in television I don’t take it seriously. For instance, I never watch myself on television. I would find it too embarrassing. I realise it’s all ephemeral. Having a child gives you a sense of what’s real, too: my son tells me I’m a Z-list celebrity; that keeps me in my place.
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If I’m lucky I get home for Newsnight, which is my way of relaxing. On a normal day I see my son first and last thing, but not during the day. It’s one of the prices you pay for being a working mum. But I’ve always wanted to make a difference and I believe politics is the way to do that — to be a voice for people who don’t otherwise have a voice.
I have a camomile-tea habit, so I have a cup, go to bed and listen to Today in Parliament. I’ve always been fascinated by politics. Even when I’m retired and on the beach in Jamaica with a toy boy, I’ll still be going online to find out what’s happening. The last thing I listen to before I go to sleep is the midnight news bulletin. I start and finish my day with news.