I first started to regularly see Abbott on ‘A Week in Politics’ with Michael Portillo. She was nearly always wrong, and Portillo ran rings around her. On the rare occassion she was actually right, she was sneering and condensending and unlikeable. So I don’t like her.
And many others share the same opinion, she is not popular.
However, the tone of some of the attacks on her are dodgy. She is an aged woman, so attacks on her looks are ridiculous. The HofC is full of fat, ugly, old men, but they seem to get a pass. Yet a not attractive black woman gets a lot of grief just because of her appearance.
I did not watch QT (I detest the format), so I cannot judge the audiences reaction. But there definitely is a campaign to vilify her in the rightwing press, presumably because she is a successful black woman.