Abbott’s Twitter troubles

That Diane Abbott tweet that Pete mentioned earlier (‘White people love playing divide and rule’) has made her the centre of attention this morning. She may have deleted it, and claimed that it has been ‘taken out of context’, but still the Labour Party has deemed it necessary to give her a public telling off for it. A spokesman said:

‘We disagree with Diane’s tweet. It is wrong to make sweeping generalisations about any race, creed, or culture. The Labour Party has always campaigned against such behaviour – and so has Diane Abbott.’

And Abbott herself has now apologised, although not exactly wholeheartedly:

‘I understand people have interpreted my comments as making generalisations about white people. I do not believe in doing that. I apologise for any offence caused.’

We’ll have to see if that’s enough to draw a line under all this. It may not be, particularly with Tory MP Nadhim Zahawi claiming:

‘If it was a white MP generalising against the black community and saying that the black community divide and rule, they would resign or be sacked in five minutes.’

Update: Before her apology, Abbott spoke to Sky News, but was interrupted by a phone call. According to Paul Waugh, it was Ed Miliband, and the Labour leader gave her  ‘a severe dressing down’. Here’s the clip, courtesy of Political Scrapbook: