FUNNY how things can come and bite you in the behind.

I speak none other than the strange situation Diane Abbot has got herself into.

This week she was forced to apologise for claiming on Twitter that ‘white people love playing ‘divide and rule’. We should not play their game.”

The remark was a reaction to a conversation on Twitter about media coverage in the wake of the Stephen Lawrence murder trial.

She faced calls to quit and was given a telling off by Labour leader Ed Miliband.

Earlier she had said the comment was taken out of context.

Of course her comments were way off the mark. So for someone who is herself supposed to be anti-racism campaigner this has become all the more embarrassing.

You can’t have one rule for one and another rule for everyone else.

It goes to show how things have changed: It is almost impossible to say anything about particular issues without falling in this ‘offense’ trap.

She’s not the first person to have said something and then when having thought about realised it was better to have kept your mouth shut.

It has become an almost regular occurrence.

Within the next month we will have someone else making a complete mess of their reputation.

Now, I am not a big fan of Twitter. The reason being I have very little to say for most of the time. And most of the time people have very little of any relevance to say too.

On the plus side it does kind of catch people out.

I think the best thing to do is to treat everyone with a little respect or a little contempt.

I know both sorts of people and at least with each one I know exactly where I stand.

I recollect some years ago someone moaning at the referee for being racist as he was always giving decisions to one set of players.

His answer was simple… ‘Look, I hate everyone on this pitch because you are all making my life hell.’ Fair do.