Frank Hester comments: why did it take so long for Rishi Sunak to call out Tory donor's remarks as 'racist'?

The businessman, who has donated £10 million to the Conservatives in the past year and his firm has paid for one of Rishi Sunak’s helicopter flights, was speaking in a private meeting. 

At the time, Hester said he did not hate all black women, but seeing Abbott on TV meant “you just want to hate all black women because she’s there”. The Tory donor has since apologised for his “rude” remarks, but denied they were to do with Abbott’s gender or race.

Now for me, it seems pretty obvious. Hester appears to be judging all black women based on their race, due to his apparent hatred of Diane Abbott. That is racist in my book. On top of that, he’s also apparently said she “should be shot”. 

However on Tuesday morning, it appeared as if Tory Cabinet members, and by default the Prime Minister, disagreed with me. Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride argued that the reported words were not “gender-based or race-based”, adding: “He has apologised and I think we need to move on from that.”

Energy minister Graham Stuart said that, while the alleged remarks were “ridiculous”, he would “hesitate” to describe them as racist. And the midday briefing with journalists reaching farcical levels as Sunak’s official spokesman continually refused to say they were racist.

He repeated that the words were “wrong” and “unacceptable” but would not explain why. Hacks continually tried to probe and push but the spokesman did not budge - clearly Sunak does not think what Hester is reported to have said was racist. That was the only conclusion to draw.

I was having deja vu. Only a few weeks before, journalists had had exactly the same confrontation over Lee Anderson’s comments about how Sadiq Khan’s mates were “Islamists” and he’d let them “take control of London”. 

The spokesman repeatedly said that Anderson’s comments were “wrong” but could not articulate why they were. Again this seemed fairly obvious - the Muslim mayor was being described as mates with terrorists purely based on his religion. 

Back to Hester - at the 3.45pm briefing on Tuesday, once again Downing Street refused to say his alleged comments were racist. However, now there was some apparent dissent - Kemi Badenoch, the Business and Trade Secretary, tweeted to say: “Hester’s 2019 comments, as reported, were racist.”

And then bingo, more than 24 hours after the Guardian broke the story, No10 put out a statement. Sunak now thought the comments were indeed “racist”. He repeated this at PMQs, but said Hester had shown “remorse”. Downing Street explained away the delay as giving “someone a proper right of reply”.

No10 confirmed it did not consider the businessman “racist” as he had “donated to the most diverse Cabinet in history”. Journalists should "judge him on his actions", we were told. So if you give money to the Tories you cannot be racist? Case closed in that case. 

Now why does this matter, beyond the basic moral point that the Prime Minister should call out racism immediately? Tomorrow, the government will announce its new definition of extremism, which is thought to be in response to the pro-Palestine marches which have been appearing across the UK. 

How can we trust Sunak and his government to get this right, if he cannot call out a comment immediately which is so obviously racist and extremist? Hester also reportedly said that he wanted to shoot an MP. If someone on a pro-Palestine march uttered that near a police officer they’d almost certainly be arrested.

Yet according to ministers, the Conservatives will continue to accept donations from him and he’s shown he’s not racist by giving money to “the most diverse Cabinet in history”. It looks like money still talks with Frank. 

Ralph Blackburn is NationalWorld’s politics editor based in Westminster, where he gets special access to Parliament, MPs and government briefings. If you liked this article you can follow Ralph on X (Twitter) here and sign up to his free weekly newsletter Politics Uncovered, which brings you the latest analysis and gossip from Westminster every Sunday morning.