Political suicide by Twitter
April 13th, 2010 at 2:00 pm by David FarrarThe Times reports:
The general election campaign claimed its first scalp today when Labour sacked one of its candidates in Scotland who posted dozens of offensive comments on his Twitter page.
The spectacular “Twitter suicide” overshadowed Labour’s formal campaign launch in Scotland and left Gordon Brown fuming.
Stuart MacLennan, 24, a rising star of the Scottish Labour Party who was standing in the Moray constituency, shut down his account on the microblogging site early this morning after The Scottish Sun reported that he had branded the elderly “coffin-dodgers”.
He had also labelled the Commons Speaker John Bercow a “t**”, David Cameron a “t***” and Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, “a b******”.
Oh dear “coffin dodgers” is not going to get in over 60 vote for Labour.
Nor was his ire limited to the political world. The Sun reported that Mr MacLennan called the X Factor judge Louis Walsh a “c***”, referred to Jedward as “odious little s***s” and wrote: “I f****** hate Paolo Nutini”.
Well he has a point, with those descriptions, but best not to think out loud when you are planning to stand for Parliament.
April 13th, 2010 at 2:21 pm
Blimey. See what happens when we call for more honesty in politics!
Vote:April 13th, 2010 at 2:43 pm
Hone Harawira said all that – and worse about all non-Maori – and look what DIDN’T happen to him.
In light of the fate meted out to the Scottish Labourite, won’t it be simply fascinating to hear the next Maori claim (as they so constantly are wont to do) how they as a people are discriminated against.
Vote:April 13th, 2010 at 2:46 pm
Labour so far are running an atrocious campaign with one hit after the other and most of it is their own doing. Labour are simply sick of being Government and are committing suicide day by day.
Vote:April 13th, 2010 at 2:56 pm
Oh I dunno – maybe he’s after the yoof vote?
Vote:April 13th, 2010 at 3:00 pm
Wow, a Gen Y kid with no concept of online discretion. Never seen one of those before.
Vote:April 13th, 2010 at 3:17 pm
Given that the UK election is less than a month away it’s a shame the New Zealand MSM are giving the campaign hardly any coverage at all.
Vote:April 13th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
Is he related to Mayor Williams?
Vote:April 13th, 2010 at 3:55 pm
Stuart MacLennan ain’t got nothing on the email shenanigans of the Republican candidate for Governor of New York Carl Paladino.
Vote:April 13th, 2010 at 5:53 pm
twittercide
Vote:April 13th, 2010 at 6:08 pm
***Labour sacked one of its candidates in Scotland who posted dozens of offensive comments on his Twitter page.***
Agree to invade of a middle eastern country for bogus reasons. Fine.
Betray your working class constituency by importing millions of low skill, sometimes culturally incompatible, migrants. Fine.
Write some swear words on twitter. Sacked and disgraced.
Vote:April 13th, 2010 at 6:33 pm
For the life of me I can not understand why people feel the need to twit every boring aspect of their lives. Fuck who gives a damn. Between social networking sites and twitter many peoples lives are now open books. I’m sure this data never goes away and could be used by the “man” one day to kick arse.
Vote:April 13th, 2010 at 9:03 pm
Imagine if we had Twitter 15 years ago…
You could get yourself into trouble with a fax machine…
Vote:April 13th, 2010 at 10:22 pm
lol what a dork.
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