YOUR correspondents Mrs Chappell and Mr Gordon (Letters, January 12) are right to highlight the inflammatory remarks of Labour frontbencher Diane Abbott about white people playing divide and rule.

The fact that Ms Abbott, pictured, retains the confidence of her party leader says all you need to know about the current state of the Labour Party.

Another player to come poorly out of this incident is the London end of the BBC. Its current affairs programme on Radio 4, The World Tonight, gave a platform to a diarist on the left-wing Guardian newspaper (the corporation’s paper of choice) as well as to Linda Bellos, the hard-left leader of Lambeth council.

Neither of these characters could remotely be expected to reflect public outrage over what Diane Abbott said, and neither did so – one of them even dismissing the controversy as being neither here nor there.

But that’s political balance BBC-style.

COLIN SMITH (Totton Branch, New Forest East Conservatives), Totton.