Diane Abbott pulls out of Woman's Hour election debate with Amber Rudd after another bungled interview

She has also pulled out of a hustings being hosted by the London Evening Standard

Labour’s Diane Abbott pulled out of two major election debates on Tuesday following a string of embarrassing bungled interviews.

Ms Abbott was set to go head-to-head with Home Secretary Amber Rudd on a BBC Radio debate but withdrew due to “illness”, she later pulled out of a hustings hosted by the London Evening Standard.

It came after yet another difficult interview in which she struggled to answer questions about her own home affairs brief, with her leader Jeremy Corbyn facing questions over whether she would be up to a job in government.

The BBC announced that shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry would stand in for Ms Abbott on Radio 4's Woman's Hour programme and Standard editor George Osborne later confirmed she would not appear at his newspaper's election event in the capital.

In an interview with Sky News on Monday night, Ms Abbott said it was time to “revisit” the advice in a report into London security by the former Metropolitan Police Authority chairman Lord Harris, but was then unable to give any of the specific details of it.

Asked which part she was endorsing in the uncomfortable interview, she simply replied: “I just think it’s about preparedness and resilience.”

Ms Abbott denied reports that the Labour leader and shadow chancellor John McDonnell were taking steps to keep her off air for the remainder of the election campaign.

“I am here. I have just come from doing another media interview. I’m going on to do another media interview. There is no truth in the idea I’m not in the media,” she told Sky.

In a previous excruciating interview Ms Abbott struggled with figures around Labour’s policy of introducing 10,000 new police officers, and later appeared ill-briefed over the losses the party suffered in local elections.

Despite claims that Ms Abbott was “ill”, a picture emerged on Twitter of her near the BBC's offices shortly before the radio debate was due to happen, leading the Conservatives to accuse Labour of trying to hide the shadow Home Secretary to prevent her from making any further gaffes.

International Development Secretary Priti Patel said: “Jeremy Corbyn wants to make Diane Abbott Home Secretary in just two days but is hiding her away from voters.

“The woman who would be in charge of our police and the intelligence services cannot even be trusted by Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell to go on the airwaves to explain their shocking record on national security.”