He is the new American president and very possibly the busiest man in the world at present. She is the UK’s shadow home secretary and has enough time on her hands to run her own grandly-titled education charity.
Yet when it comes to being organised, Donald Trump is streets ahead of Diane Abbott.
Both Trump and Abbott have going concerns which are listed with Companies House, Britain’s register of companies.
Despite being installed as US President on Friday, Trump still found time the day before his inauguration to alert Companies House staff to the fact that he had resigned as Director of his two UK companies, DT Connect Europe Ltd; and Trump International Gold Club Scotland Ltd.
By contrast, Abbott was supposed to file a ‘confirmation statement’ – previously called an annual return – with Companies House administrators on December 20 regarding her charity, the Diane Abbott Foundation, but at the time of writing still hasn’t bothered to do so, risking a fine.
Abbott has a terrible track record when it comes to submitting paperwork to Companies House on time but has never explained why this should be so. Is she just disorganised or doesn’t she believe the rules apply to her?
Heat Street has taken a close interest in Abbott’s “foundation” in the past and found it is prone to spending large amounts of money in highly questionable ways.
In August we revealed that its first set of published accounts showed it received £35,000 of income.
Of this, we discovered that £29,072 was spent hosting the 2014 London Schools and the Black Child awards ceremony in parliament. Only £2,000 of this figure was spent on prizes for the children being recognised.
And in October, we reported how the Diane Abbott Foundation spent £10,000 – its only declared income during 2015 – on a party to launch the Diane Abbott Foundation.
So in the 24 months between the Diane Abbott Foundation being started in December 2013, and December 2015, the charity secured £45,000 of funding.
Roughly £40,000 of this cash was spent on costs associated with throwing two parties.
The US president adheres to the rules in so basic a matter as lodging paperwork with Companies House, but Diane Abbott, who aspires to one of the four great British offices of state, doesn’t.
Who is better equipped to run their country – and who would you want running yours?