Diane Abbott makes another number blunder as she struggles to explain how Labour would pay for more police officers

Diane Abbott has again stumbled in an interview over police funding, following her famous "car-crash" encounter with LBC radio's Nick Ferrari during the General Election campaign.

The shadow home secretary appeared to struggle to recall the cost of Labour's plans to recruit additional police officers during an interview with ITV News.

Last night she tweeted at ITV: "Sick of "gotcha" journalism? I certainly am. Maybe journalists should try focusing on the real issues that affect peoples lives."

In the new ITV interview, Ms Abbott said: "What we've said is that we would find the money to recruit the 10,000 policepeople by cutting the, cutting... We would find the money because we would look at capital gains tax.

"The Tories have cut capital gains tax and we want to restore it and that would give us, I think, 170..."

At this point, Ms Abbott paused momentarily and said "sorry" to someone off camera, before continuing: "We would find the money by restoring levels of capital gains tax."

Asked by the reporter whether this would raise £300 million a year to fund the policy, she replied: "We think that by restoring the cuts in capital gains tax, that would find us another £300 million a year."

A spokesman for Diane Abbott said: "This is a smokescreen.

"The Tories have presided over a surge in recorded crime and a record low in police numbers. They want to use one slip from Diane Abbott to distract from their own terrible record on policing and crime. The public won't buy it."