"I despise her for banging on about comprehensive education, and then sending her children to a private school, seems very two faced, and that's not the only mark against her, but it will do "
Well of course, if you can't stand the woman then that won't help in your ability to assess the question fairly, just as my assessment of Jeremy Clarkson as a n*bhead precludes my ability to do the same in his case, which is one reason I suggested it was interesting to compare the fuss caused by the two cases. People generally rally to their own cause: had JC said that Servicepersons' wives and husbands should have been dragged out and shot the fallout would have come from different sources and might just possibly have got him the sack.
People have different opinions on things - I certainly agree that what Diane Abbott said was silly and I am sure she regrets it, but the devil of it for me is that there are so many ways of expressing an opinion these days in a very public way and once they've been said they can't be "unsaid" even if you can delete stuff from Twitter, it's nothing more than a futile gesture. People still remember what was said, but the medium is made for controversy as we are already seeing. Advising politicians, for example, not to use it is an understandable reaction but probably a futile one. Diane Abbott is I am sure not a racist, but she does have hard-hitting and polemic views on race and occasionally is bound to say things which others will find harsh. Diane Abbott or whoever + twitter or whatever = potential controversy.