John Barnes Defends Amber Rudd Over "Coloured" Row In Fiery LBC Interview

7 March 2019, 16:48 | Updated: 7 March 2019, 16:59

Shelagh Fogarty’s interview with John Barnes became very spiky as the pair debated the furore over Amber Rudd referring to Diane Abbott as a “coloured woman”.

The ex-England footballer said the Work and Pension Secretary was “fantastic” for speaking up for black women in a discussion about abuse faced by female MPs.

In the interview, Ms Rudd, who has since apologised, said: "It definitely is worse if you're a woman, it's worst of all if you're a coloured woman.

"I know that Diane Abbott gets a huge amount of abuse, that's something we need to call out."

Ms Abbott responded on Twitter saying it was a “revealing choice of words”.

But, speaking on LBC, Mr Barnes said people were focusing on the wrong issue.

“What we should be talking about is - isn’t [Amber Rudd] fantastic?

“Isn’t she fantastic to even consider black, coloured women, whatever you want to call it, are disenfranchised and underrepresented compared to white women.

“But we are not talking about that.”

At times, the LBC interview became very heated.

Watch it in full above.