Diane Abbott's ridiculous claim that strong men can't be bullied isn’t just wrong – it’s disappointing

With a growing mental health crisis, the Labour MP should understand that men need to talk more, not less

The “Westminster bubble” is, by all accounts, an immensely stressful workplace characterised by excessive workload and unsustainable working hours combined with a healthy dollop of antiquated practices and the persistent underrepresentation of individuals outside of the white, cishet male demographic. The political uncertainty of recent years will undoubtedly have contributed to this toxic culture.

At the helm of Commons business from 2010 to 2019 was John Bercow. Allegations of bullying against him appear to be mounting at a time when his legacy as speaker is yet to be fully forged. Whether or not there is merit to the claims remains to be seen. What we can say with certainty, however, is that Bercow's time in office divided opinion unlike any of his predecessors and, extraordinarily, not along established party lines.

While prominent figures in the Conservative Party rush to cast doubt on their ex-colleague's character, support came today from what would once have been a more unexpected source – Diane Abbott. In a since-deleted tweet, Abbott described former Black Rod David Leakey's claims of bullying as “unlikely”, invoking his former high-profile military career, which included service in Northern Ireland and Bosnia. The inference in the tweet is clear; there are some types of men who simply cannot be, or should not allow themselves to be, bullied by others.

This is problematic for a whole range of reasons. While our national obsession with the military is a cause for concern for those of us who would much prefer a less interventionist Britain (that's a debate for another day), the facts speak for themselves. An MoD-funded study by King's College London concluded in 2018 that the rate of PTSD among members of the UK armed forces has increased and remains higher than the civilian population. 30.7 per cent of personnel engaged in combat roles in Iraq or Afghanistan reported “common mental health disorders” in 2014-16. The suggestion that an ex-serviceman is “unlikely” to be bullied or intimidated in the workplace does not just reflect an outdated notion of what it means to be a “strong man”, it also flies in the face of the evidence and risks undermining the hard work done in recent years to counter the prevailing narrative that men should neither engage with nor share their feelings.

Abbott's intervention also implies a hierarchy of credence over allegations of workplace bullying, which potentially sets a dangerous precedent. The arbitrary pre-judgement of an individual's complaint based on their gender, previous career or any other factor will not encourage other possible victims to come forward. In addition, the shadow home secretary risks eroding her own record on the issue of mental health, a subject she has spoken and written about on several previous occasions. Ultimately, we must all surely concur that everyone should feel empowered to share such experiences without fear of instant invalidation.

Abbott, the UK's first black female MP, is herself a regular victim of misogynoir bullying, particularly on social media platforms. Furthermore, her mother was a specialist mental health nurse and her son has, according to media reports, undergone treatment for “mental health issues”. With this in mind, Abbott has demonstrated a stark lack of empathy and a concerning willingness to generalise and delegitimise the self-stated experience of a person operating in what is undoubtedly a pressure cooker of tension.

Men need to talk more, not less, amidst a growing mental health crisis that men find themselves disproportionately affected by. Abbott's words will rightly resonate as a dismissive, over-simplistic interpretation of what it means to be a 'strong man' and whether we need that definition at all.