LBC's Top 10 of the decade: 1. Diane Abbott's agonising interview

1 January 2020, 10:13

Diane Abbott's infamous car-crash interview with Nick Ferrari is at number one in LBC's top clips of the decade.

10. James O'Brien rails at the fraudsters still selling Brexit
9. Furious Farage goes on attack at Putin caller
8. Eddie Mair skewers Liz Truss over Brexit
7. James O'Brien's first famous viral hit
6. Theresa May refuses to say if she’d vote for Brexit
5. "If Grenfell residents move in, I'll move out"
4. "Which EU law are you looking forward to losing?"
3. Natalie Bennett's incredibly awkward interview
2. James O'Brien v Nigel Farage

The shadow Home Secretary's agonising conversation live on LBC went viral when she got her sums hopelessly wrong as she launched Labour's new police strategy ahead of the 2017 general election.

At one point, she claimed that the policy would cost £300,000 - the equivalent of £30 per police officer.

When asked how much the policy would cost, Ms Abbott said: "Well, erm... if we recruit the 10,000 policemen and women over a four-year period, we believe it will be about £300,000."

Nick queried the amount: "£300,000 for 10,000 police officers? What are you paying them?"

Ms Abbott tried to clarify: "Haha, no. I mean... sorry. They will cost... they will, it will cost, erm, about... about £80million."

Again Nick asked how she got to that figure, explaining that it would mean paying the police officers an annual salary of £8,000.

Ms Abbott said: "We get to that figure because we anticipate recruiting 25,000 extra police officers a year at least over a period of four years and we're looking at what average police wages are generally, but also specifically police wages in London."

The interview has to be heard to be believed. Watch it at the top of the page.