Many correspondents have been giving Diane Abbott, MP for Hackney, a hard time over her hypocrisy in sending her son to a fee-paying school after years of promoting the Labour line on comprehensives.

After watching some of her recent appearances on television with Michael Portillo, I have revised my opinion of Diane, realising she has many sterling qualities besides that dazzling smile.

She is a Cambridge graduate with a remarkable independence of thought which is very rare in a politician. She is someone who takes the trouble to listen to both sides of an argument and is refreshingly honest.

In this case, she is like a sinner, has repented, someone who has allowed her heart to rule her head and is exercising a woman's prerogative to change her mind by putting her son's future before her career.

Shakespeare was right: "Frailty, thy name is woman."

Many men find this sort of female vulnerability very attractive. At least she has demonstrated she is a grown-up member of the human race and not just a cloned Blairite babe.

-Alan Nunn, Hove