Frank Hester, a businessman from London who has given £10m to the Tories in the past year, has been quoted as telling his colleagues that looking at MP Diane Abbott makes you “want to hate all Black women” and that she “should be shot.” Hester, who was awarded an OBE in 2015, runs a healthcare tech firm called The Phoenix Partnership (TPP), which various government bodies, including the NHS, have paid over £400m since 2016 to look after UK medical records.
According to The Guardian, quotes have been leaked from a 2019 meeting at TPP’s headquarters in which Hester spoke about an executive from another organisation before aiming remarks Ms Abbott, saying: “She’s shit. She’s the shittest person. Honestly, I try not to be sexist but when I meet somebody like [the executive], I just... It’s like trying not to be racist but you see Diane Abbott on the TV and you’re just like, I hate; you just want to hate all Black women because she’s there, and I don’t hate all Black women at all, but I think she should be shot.
“[The executive] and Diane Abbott need to be shot. She’s stupid... If we can get [the executive] being unprofessional we can get her sacked. It’s not as good as her dying. It would be much better if she died. She’s consuming resource. She’s eating food that other people could eat. You know?”
After the publication of the remarks, TPP issued the following statement: “[Hester] accepts that he was rude about Diane Abbott in a private meeting several years ago but his criticism had nothing to do with her gender nor colour of skin”. The statement even went on to say that Hester was anti-racist, “not least because he experienced it as the child of Irish immigrants in the 1970s.”
It continued: “He rang Diane Abbott twice today to try to apologise directly for the hurt he has caused her, and is deeply sorry for his remarks. He wishes to make it clear that he regards racism as a poison which has no place in public life.”
He later called on all the “foreign” employees at TPP to refute accusations that he was racist. He reiterated his claim that he “abhorred” racism, but also said that “we take the piss out of the fact that all our Chinese girls sit together in Asian corner”.
The Labour Party has called for the Conservatives to return the £10m that Frank Hester and his company donated.
