Labour candidate fired for posting offensive views

LABOUR fired a parliamentary candidate yesterday over offensive comments he posted on Twitter, embarrassing Prime Minister Gordon Brown ahead of May’s election.

Stuart MacLennan, candidate for the Scottish constituency of Moray, posted profanity-laced comments about Labour and opposition politicians, celebrities and local people on the online micro-blogging service.

MacLennan reportedly branded the elderly “coffin dodgers” and posted a series of foul-mouthed rants about politicians.

“A candidate has made a mistake. It’s unacceptable. That candidate has got to resign... We cannot have people standing as candidates for the Labour Party who express these views,” Brown told reporters during a campaign stop.

“That candidate will not be a candidate for the Labour Party,” he added.

A Scottish Labour Party spokesman said MacLennan had been sacked as Labour candidate for Moray “for the totally unacceptable language which he has expressed online”.

“On reading the comments in full, the Scottish Labour Party was outraged by their content and Scottish Labour’s general secretary took the decision to suspend his membership of the Labour Party,” he said.

His Twitter page has been closed down but the Scottish Sun said he called House of Commons Speaker John Bercow a “t**”, Tory leader David Cameron a “t**t” and Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg “a b*****d”. He posted an outburst about veteran Labour MP Diane Abbott, describing her as “a f**king idiot”, the paper said.

Mr MacLennan also posted insults about celebrities, according to the Sun.

He reportedly called X Factor judge Louis Walsh a “c**t”, referred to Jedward as “odious little s***s” and wrote: “I f**king hate Paolo Nutini”.