Meet the real Diane Abbott — metropolitan, faux-left and middle-class

Years ago I used to spend one evening a month in some dank and frowzy local authority hall attempting to prevent crazed and scary lesbians from becoming my local MP or councillor. This was during my time as a Labour party activist in south London — and attendance at the staggeringly dull ward meetings was compulsory for a small group of us who hoped that one day the party might select candidates who had not whizzed in from the Kuiper Belt or the Oort Zone, that strange, dark and cold place on the edge of our solar system from which all manner of trouble emanates. But we were in a minority and the local party always selected crazed and scary lesbians, Roz Termagant from the important steering group, Streatham Wimmen Against Everything, Fran Harridan from the Brixton Radical Lesbian Workshop and so on. Their lesbianism wasn’t a problem, although it was worn as a badge of honour.