you'd say you speak with corporate people. what are their thoughts on rebuilding our very, very badly eroded industrial base in this country? guest: i think that is a great way to go out. in 2011, the number of the job postings on line had increased considerably over the last few weeks. in addition to higher consumption and more purchases, we are seeing more job opportunities. we are just starting, i think, to see the light at the end of the tunnel in terms of the recession we have been in. what i appreciate the most about corporate america is a new sense of commitment to the community, a sense that profit is not the be-all, end-all. i love the idea that over the past two years, with town hall meetings, there have been get together recessions. -- get-together sessions. i have interviewed some of the top ceos in america. they are engaged. you can e-mail them, calls them, challenge them. this did not exist 10 years ago. the more accountable we are and the more there is a give-and- take, the healthier the society is and the healthier the business relationship. i think that will rebuild what was destroyed over the past couple of years. i am a pessimist. i work 16 hours a day in the hope that i can change that. i think we have learned a lot over the past few years, and i think we are ready to change the direction. i just hope that on shows and organizations like c-span, which >> on tomorrow's "washington journal" the future of the president's relationship with political progressives. lynn stanton on the net neutrality rules for the internet. and brian stan on higher heroes u.s.a. on job prospects for american veterans. begins live at 7:00 eastern on c-span. >> tonight on q&a, diane abbott. from the labor party. she talks about the budget measures and supreme court court justices sandra day o'connor and justice souter on their new careers. also a panel discussion on limited government. monday is day one of american university's campaign manual institute, training students to work on political campaigns. we'll hear from political consultants and strategists on both parties, topics include the general political environment and the chicago mayor's race. we'll have live coverage starting at 9:00 a.m. eastern on c-span 2. c-span's orange documentary on the supreme court has been newly updated and airs sunday, january 2. you'll see the grand public places and those only available to the justices and their staffs and you'll hear about how the court works from all the current supreme court justices, including the newest justice elena kagen. and learn of the court's recent developments, the supreme court, home to america's highest court, airing for the first time in high definition, sunday, january 2, 6:30 p.m. eastern on c-span. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captioning copyright national cable satellite corps. 2010] host: what does it mean to be a member of the shadow cabinet? host: guest: it means you're shadowing government ministers. i place a particular emphasis on public health. >> when you mean shadow, what do you do, do you have a budget or a staff? >> i have no budget but i'm the labor party spokeswoman on health issues and i have a small staff. so i'm a spokesman on legislation coming through and issues in the media. i'm part of a top team of the labor party now. host: why did you run for house of commons in the first place? guest: why did i run? i wanted to speak up for people who didn't have a voice and became an m.p. three years ago. there were very view labor members and i was the first black woman elected to parliament. because i speak up for people who wouldn't have got heard otherwise. host: first black woman to be in the parliament of this country? guest: yes,ened aye was elect 1d50 years after the abolition of slavery in the british empire so shows you there's such thing as progress. >> what were the circumstances in your constituency and where is it? guest: my constituency in london is in a very poor part of london with a very large minority community. and very high unemployment. when i was selected that district believed they wanted a representative who would help in the district and had a wonderful member parliament well into the 1970's but they felt in 19786 it would be a changed election and they wanted to change candidates. but it wasn't an all black district and never has been the case in britain where black minority candidates can only get elected in all black or minority districts. it's about a diverse district. host: how many constituents do you have? >> about 65,000 people. host: what does it cost you to run? >> we have really tough finance campaign rules when you're running. and the amount of money you can spend is six and calculated according to your population and nobody else knows political action committee or the national party, is not allowed to run ads in your campaign and you can't buy television time if you're a british parliamentary candidate. so that cuts a lot of spending. and i think the first time i ran for parliament, i remember like it was yesterday. host: $4,500, is close to $8,000. how do you raise that? guest: the party raises it through bake soles -- sales and inviting donations. the campaigns are about going door to door and you don't have a huge budget and about circulating literature. nowadays you can have a campaign website. but the districts are smaller, the american districts and we very much rely on door to door and in the national party gets donations and that's the subject of much criticism. but if you're talking about local parliament, i had to raise a lot of money that a radical young black woman would have been elected 23 years ago. host: don't big business and unions pour money into the parties and they -- is there a limit to how much you can spend in a campaign? guest: there's a limit to how much you can spend. my first campaign was 4,500 pounds and you have to submit all your campaign accounts at the end of the campaign and if anybody can find that have spent money you don't account for, your election can be struck down. that happened once in recent years. a woman got elected but one of her own party members complained that she used cash and didn't put them in the account and she was taken back to court to be reinstated so transparency makes it very easy to police and people can't put extra money into a campaign because you'd have to declare it. host: you mentioned just before we started that you're very much connected into the american media. guest: yes. it all goes back to the democratic primaries and obama. i mean, i was so astounded when obama ran the iowa primaries and i went online and heard him speak, i was completely spellbound and after that, i followed it relentlessly. i followed it on the bbc and the world service, which is great. but i also went online and listened to u.s. media like pbs, like npr, like c-span, because you can get most of it online and some of it i would download and listen to it on my mp3 player. host: do you still do that? guest: i listen to u.s. political media nearly every day. i listen to npr, i listen to "washington week" with gwen eiffel and "meet the press" so i listen to it all the time. i've always been interested in american politics but obama has made it rivetting. host: we found in our archive an appearance you made in 1994 on the c-span network and i want to run it and let you see not only what you looked like back in 1994 but what you were talking about then. >> diane abbott, you are a member of the british house of commons and a member of the minority population here in great britain. does it matter at all in the house if you are an ethnic minority? any difference from other members? >> you've got to remember that when i and my colleagues were re-elected in 1987, it was the first time certainly that people of african descent were elected to british parliament. in the 18th century, they generally created mayhem and i think they felt that black people like the second coming of 18th century irish and the speaker took good care to give a sort of drink earlier on, when we started, they were frightened we would be disruptive, but to their surprise, we were quite pleasant and it's settled down now. but at the advent, there was trepidation. the thing to remember in the house of commons is not about color so much as it's about change. in the house of commons clerk -- cloakroom, we hang up our coats,every peg has a loop of red ribbon to hang up your sword but no one has had a sword to hang up for 200 years so that's how long had takes to adjust to change so certainly having m.p.'s of color in '87 was a great deal of change. host: what's happened to the parliament since 16 years ago in the way of minority members? guest: there's a great deal more minority members now on both sides of the aisle and the ruling party has done very well, actually. and there are about half a dozen black minority members when they didn't have any when they first came in. so there has been an advance, not as many as i think it should be, but it's a big advance. host: given the system, in the united states, we have over 40 members of the u.s. house of representatives out of 435. what's the total number? i think i read it's 3% of 646 members. guest: i think it's about 20-something now. host: so under your system, how do you get more minorities elected? guest: what the conservative party did is they put pressure on the local organization to vote for minority members. we don't have what happens in the united states, districts that are entirely minority and will elect a minority member. we don't have the history of segregation and so on. so in the labour party, it's progressive wants to see more minorities and in the conservative party, i think they began to think in the 21st century they should look more diverse and so they encouraged -- that's probably the politest thing, they encouraged associations to vote minorities. host: what did you think of what you said 16 years ago? guest: it's true, they really thought -- because the irish that came in in the 19th century were republicans and they thought that of us when we came in, afraid that we would be disrupting. host: what issues are the most important to you? guest: the most important issues to me are speaking up for my district and in particular speaking up for the poor, speaking up for the marginalized. i'm very concerned about civil liberties. i was against the iraq war, and i'm very concerned about equality and justice. host: so what's a district look like? we call them districts. you call them constituencies. what's the makeup? guest: traditionally, the people that lived in my district worked on the docks and in small workshops but it now has some very high unemployment because patented employment in poor districts have changed and jobs have moved away. in terms of the makeup of my district, traditionally, it was actually a center of jewish migration. i have one of the oldest synagogues in london in my district, but largely that you're community has moved away, apart from a very vibrant hasidic jewish community that lives in my district and they're the largest such community in europe but because they like to live near their synagogues, they stay put so the traditional jewish communities are the hasidic like you have in brooklyn are still there. it's also hard -- originally a lot of people from the west indies, now people from africa. we always have people from south asia, vietnamese, very diverse district. the minority in my district is white anglo saxon protestants. host: there was an article in "the sun" and i read the headlines, "white britains are a minority in 2066. guest: i think these scare stories about migration are very wrong. migration has incredibly enriched london, whether it's american bankers who have come here to work in our financial services, whether it's french businessmen, vietnamese shopkeepers, african painters, london, like new york, is a great city because of migration. the type of politician that wants to scare people about it but it makes london a great city and it would be surprising if england, which was the center of an empire and on a whole number of trading routes across europe, was not a diverse country. host: what's the feeling that you're not only a minority but you're a minority in the government. in other words, as the labour party for years -- 11 years you were in the majority and tony blair was the prime minister. what's the different feel now? guest: it's very different i had a brilliant intern named carey sewell and she was a brilliant young woman. i'm really pleased to see that she'll be sering her country at the level of congress. host: how did she become an intern under you? guest: she wrote to me. she was studying at oxford at the time and she wrote to me that she wanted to be my intern and i know she'll be a brilliant congresswoman. host: in the u.s. house of representatives and the senate, they have 15, 18, 30 members on their staff. when she was an intern, how many other people did you have on your staff? guest: i had half a dozen people on my staff so i got to know her very well and i would call her a friend. host: did you teach her anything? guest: i hope maybe she picked up a little bit about what it is to be a black woman in politics and how you have to carry yourself. i hope i helped her a little bit. host: what's the difference from being a black woman in politics and being a white guy in politics. guest: all your mistakes are made in full public glare and the community has very high expectations. it's a privilege and honor but also a challenge to be a minority in politics even after all these years. host: are you aware that you're in a minority as you walk around the house of commons? guest: i read history at cambridge. one of our elite universities. i worked in the media years before it was common to see minorities in the media so i long ago learned to just take no notice of people looking at me. when i was in ump and friends would come for coffee, they would say, you have all these people looking at you, but i would just ignore it. you have to do what you want to do in life, carry yourself in a humble but assured matter. host: a short time ago, you ran for the leader of your party. explain what you were doing? guest: we lost the last election so we had -- it was not quite the primary system we had in the united states but it did mean traveling all around the country speaking to party members and trying to win support. after the election, there were three or four men who brought themselves forward but i was concerned that first, there was no woman. they were guys. second of all, they were all what you would call inside the beltway, sort of insiders. i thought the party needed a broader range of candidates and i had a political message that i wanted to be heard, a political message. i was the only one of the candidates that stood out against the iraq war, that stood up for the civil liberties, that was concerned about equality and diversity. so i felt i had a progressive message that needed to be heard so i put myself forward in leadership and went up and down the country for three months. host: did the others running go with you? guest: the way the party worked it, all the meetings that we attended we all went together so party members would see all five of us on the platform and judge between the five of us. we organized other meetings, there were 50 meetings up and down the country where we all stood on the platform and party members questioned us all and see us all side by side. host: i listened to the speech that you gave at a party convention and one of the things, my memory is, that you were talking about, was it red ed? guest: i've been calling him red ed, saying he's a dangerous liberal, dangerous progressive. it's not true and it's not fair. he's a man of center. i am a progressive but i support our new leader. host: what's the difference in being a man of the center and being a progressive in the kind of things that you're for that a center person wouldn't be for? guest: i was against the war. he supported the war at the time. i have stood out against what i believe are infringement on liberty. there's a long-running campaign in this country about the extent that the british have been complicit with guantanamo bay and i've been against torture. ed is more centrist on that but he does support trade unions and i believe personally, i think, that coming out of the credit crunch, because we both had the same collapse that you had in america, coming out of this credit crunch, we shouldn't be just expecting ordinary people to take a hit. we should actually being putting up taxes on bankers and making bankers pay some of the costs that it's cost this country to bail out banks. i think we should bear down on bonuses. ed takes a more moderate view on these things. host: you said something in your speech about the 90-day detention without trial. what is that? guest: that was something that the last labour government tried to bring in, on the back of 9/11 and fear of terrorism, they wanted to bring in 90-days detention for terror suspects without trial. i thought that was an appalling example to set for the rest of the world and i fought against it in parliament and i defeated it and the speech i made against this, i won an award for it as the parliamentary speech of the year. host: why? guest: because it was quite a good speech. host: when did you give the speech? guest: i gave it in parliament. it would have been in 1998. host: so the idea was -- one of the things you talk about in your speech, 90-day detention without trial did not become effective, then, in this country. guest: we blocked it on the floor of the house. it was defeated on the floor of the house partly by opposition members but also by the labour party members who stood up to their own party and said, we're not doing this, britain is better than this, we cannot detain innocent people for 90 days without telling them what the charge is, without allowing them to organize their own defense. it would be a victory for terrorism if we infringed our own traditions of civil liberties and civil rights. that's what many of us believed and i still think we were right. host: let me show a clip from that speech. when did you give this speech? i'm sorry, the speech you gave for the party nomination. guest: i gave this speech this year in the summer. host: in the summer. you talk about your upbringing and that's what i want to get into. >> my parents immigrated to this country from jamaica over 50 years ago. they were that generation of western immigrants that helped to rebuild our public services after the war, and they would have been so proud to see their daughter contend for the leadership of one of the greatest socialist parties in europe and the party they loved. [applause] but we face, now, george osborne's cuts which we face in a very few weeks and these will be cuts of a magnitude that we have not seen in our lifetime and thrsk is no question that we would have had to take tough action on the deficit, but let us be clear and let us keep repeating, these are not inevitable cuts caused by labor issues, these are ideological cuts. it is the intention to cut back the welfare state once and for all. host: there's a lot in that we can talk about, but start with your parents. when did they come to great britain? guest: my parents were amongst the first wave of westerners that came to the country. they came to britain in 1951, both from the same village in rural jamaica and came to london separately but met and fell in love and married. my father worked in a factory all his life and my mother was a nurse. they, themselves, had left school at 14 but they instilled in me the importance of hard work, the importance of aspiration and the importance of gett