Labour unfriends Twitter rant candidate

The Labour Party has unfriended a wannabe Scottish MP who used Twitter to broadside fellow politicos, potential voters and Johnnie Walker Red Label.

Stuart MacLennan was pitching for the seat in Moray until it was discovered he'd called David Cameron a "twat", Lib Dem supremo Nick Clegg "a bastard" and Labour MP Diane Abbott "a fucking idiot".

The 24-year-old policy researcher for Labour at Holyrood also laid into X Factor judge Louis Walsh, who he described as a "cunt", while show participants Jedward earned an "odious little shits" tweet.

The Sun has a comprehensive run-down of the rants here, including this international insight: "Barack Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize. Discuss. You've got to be fucking kidding me."

Back in Scotland, MacLennan did his best to win the hearts of Moray constituents, bemoaning being "stranded up north again", stuck in a pub packed with "depressed teuchters". Elderly voters were, he stressed, "bloody coffin dodgers".

Perhaps most seriously, MacLennan declared: "Johnnie Walker Red Label is so awful they can't sell it in Scotland."

Unsurprisingly, none of this did his political career much good, although Labour intially stood by him, insisting the comments were made a year ago before he was a candidate. It issued a statement which read: "Stuart is a young candidate and has been very foolish indeed. He now understands that this is quite unacceptable and will not be doing this kind of thing again."

A repentant MacLennan said: "Some of the things I twittered before I became a candidate were very, very silly and I can see they are offensive. I have let myself and my friends down and am really sorry."

Opposition parties wouldn't let it lie, though. Scottish Conservative leader Annabel Goldie summed up the general mood when she thundered: "I am disgusted by this disgraceful behaviour from a Labour candidate."

Shadow Scots Secretary David Mundell described MacLennan as "bang out of order", while Moray Lib Dem candidate Jamie Paterson offered: "I don't know how the Labour candidate expects to get elected using this language."

Well, the answer is that MacLennan no longer has any expectation of getting elected, since he's now been given his marching orders, the BBC has confirmed. ®