BBC admits Fiona Bruce made ‘light-hearted' comment about Diane Abbott to ‘Question Time’ audience members

Broadcaster concedes presenter's remark referred to ‘personal and political relationships’ but insists it did not suggest shadow home secretary got frontbench role due closeness with Corbyn

The BBC has privately admitted that the new Question Time host Fiona Bruce made light-hearted personal comments about Diane Abbott.

Show editors are understood to have written to the shadow home secretary acknowledging that Ms Bruce made a humorous remark to the audience before the cameras started to roll, in response to a formal complaint from Labour over the show’s “unacceptable” treatment of Ms Abbott.

While the broadcaster denied accusations that Ms Bruce had implied Ms Abbott had secured her frontbench role due to her closeness with Jeremy Corbyn, it said the presenter made a good-humoured comment about personal and political relationships.

It comes amid an ongoing row over Ms Abbott’s appearance on the flagship show earlier this month, which the veteran Labour MP described as a “horrible experience”.

Writing in exclusively for The Independent at the time, Ms Abbott said she was interrupted twice as many times as justice minister Rory Stewart, the only Conservative MP on the panel, and the audience was “whipped up against her”.

The Hackney North and Stoke Newington, London MP complained that the BBC had legitimised the “mistreatment, bias and abuse” she faces as a black woman in the public eye and her treatment could dissuade young women from black and ethnic minority groups from becoming involved in politics.

Labour also objected to a clash over polling during the programme, when Ms Bruce interrupted the shadow cabinet member when she correctly claimed that recent opinion polls suggested Labour was on a level pegging with the Tories.

Ms Bruce insisted the party was “definitely” behind but later issued an on-air clarification over her comments.

She told viewers: “I just want to pick up on something from last week’s programme. There was some discussion about opinion polls, you may aware of this.

“I was talking about a poll that came out the day of the programme that suggested the Conservatives were ahead.

“The shadow home secretary mentioned some other earlier polls which showed Labour in the lead, and we should have made that context clear, and I’m really happy to do that now.”

A BBC spokesperson said: “We are sorry to hear Diane Abbott’s concerns and have contacted her team [today] to reassure them that reports circulating on social media are inaccurate and misleading.

“Diane is a regular and important contributor to the programme.

“As we said earlier, we firmly reject claims that any of the panel was treated unfairly either before or during the recording.”