Labour MP’s Twitter row rumbles on

Eric Pickles writes letter to David Wright over "scum-sucking pigs" comment.

Oh dear. The row over David Wright’s Twitter outburst goes on. The Labour whip and MP for Telford has been on BBC Radio Shropshire to reiterate his defence — which is that he didn’t write the offensive tweet at all. Paul Waugh quotes him as saying:

I put up on Twitter a message linked to Barack Obama’s comment in the presidential race last year about conservative policy, which is: You can put lipstick on a pig but it’s still a pig. It looks like somebody, a third party, has gone into my account and made it more offensive.

I think it was a legitimate comment and, I mean, Twitter is edgy, and, you know, it provokes debate. It looks on this occasion as if it has caused a serious problem, and we need to go back and look at that.

Who exactly are these people, wandering around, hacking into Twitter accounts to make very small changes that up the offensiveness? You could be next.

It doesn’t get better for Wright. (Who, in case you missed the story, tweeted — or not — yesterday in response to the “I’ve never voted Tory . . .” poster with the erudite response: “Because you can put lipstick on a scum-sucking pig, but it’s still a scum-sucking pig. And cos they would ruin Britain.”)

The Tory chairman, Eric Pickles, has today written an open letter to Wright:

Rather than owning up to your actions you seem to be trying to claim that your “Twitter feed” was hacked into. This explanation is simply not credible:

The “Tweet” was made under your name.

You have used similar language in the past on Twitter, including describing David Cameron as a “horrible opportunistic scumbag”.

Immediately after the “Tweet”, you posted again to say that you “must’ve hit a nerve”, and then again that Conservatives “do get riled very easily”.

You then decided to apologise for the “Tweet”.

Only after all of this did you then claim that your Twitter account had been “tinkered” with.

I would be grateful if you could now stop treating people like fools.

Well, when you put it like that . . .

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