At Telegraph UK, "Diane Abbott forced to apologise in racism row after claiming 'White people love playing divide and rule’":
Diane Abbott, Labour’s shadow health minister, has faced calls to resign after claiming that white people “love to divide and rule”.Abbott's Twitter feed is here.
Miss Abbott was engulfed by criticism from political opponents who said her remarks were “racist” and would never have been tolerated had they been made about black people.
Initially, the MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington refused to say sorry for her comments, which she claimed had been taken “out of context” and interpreted “maliciously”.
However, after a “difficult” phone call with her party leader, Ed Miliband, Labour headquarters issued a statement in which Miss Abbott apologised “for any offence caused”.
Miss Abbott, the first black female MP in the Commons, made her comments in response to a commentator who said she disliked the “lazy” and “monolithic” use of the term “black community” during coverage of the Stephen Lawrence murder trial.
Bim Adewunmi, a freelance journalist, wrote on Twitter that she found many black “leaders” shown in the media to be out of touch with the people they purported to represent.
Miss Abbott responded to say the comments were “playing into a 'divide and rule’ agenda” that is as “old as colonialism”. She said black people should not “wash dirty linen in public”.
In her most inflammatory message, posted after midnight, she added: “White people love playing 'divide & rule’. We should not play their game,” appending the reference tag: “tacticasoldascolonialism”.
At the video Abbott ends the interview to take a call from "a fuming" Labour Party leader Ed Miliband.
Also at London's Daily Mail, "The hypocrisy of Diane Abbott, an expert in 'divide and rule' if ever there was one." And the Sun UK, "Fury at MP Diane Abbott’s ‘white people’ Twitter jibe."
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