It was one of the headline moments of a wildly unpredictable general election. Just one day before the country went to the polls on 8 June, Diane Abbott – Labour frontbencher, shadow home secretary, and one of Jeremy Corbyn’s most trusted allies – announced that she was taking a break from campaigning due to poor health.

Speculation was rife that Abbott’s withdrawal from the Labour campaign was not down to illness, but because of a string of ‘car crash’ media interviews. However, the MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington has now revealed the real reason she pulled out of campaigning so close to the election.

Speaking to the Guardian, Abbott, 63, says that she was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes two years ago, and that she was badly affected after having to go through six or seven consecutive interviews without eating properly.

“During the election campaign, everything went crazy – and the diabetes was out of control, the blood sugar was out of control,” she said.

Abbott came in for harsh criticism after she was unable to say how much Labour’s police funding policy would cost during an appearance on Nick Ferrari’s LBC Radio show in May. She stumbled again just a couple of days before the election, when asked on Sky News about how London could improve its responses to a major terrorist incident.

Diane Abbott reveals why she really had to pull out of general election campaign