There’s been much talk over the past couple of weeks about why the UK has yet to produce a political figure comparable to Barack Obama (pictured). Now Hackney MP Diane Abbott has come up with a novel theory. Chairing a House of Commons meeting on the Ouseley review of regulatory outcomes, Abbott spoke of Obama’s rise to the presidency via Harvard Law School, a civil rights practice and a law lectureship. ‘If we had a Barack Obama he’d be too busy being investigated by the SRA,’ she quipped.