Labour candidate sacked over Twitter abuse

Labour election candidate, Stuart MacLennan, has been sacked following offensive comments that he posted on Twitter.

The Scottish hopeful was standing in the Moray constituency, and had full support from Iain Gray, Labour's leader in Scotland, who praised MacLennan just an hour before he was sacked.

His comments targeted voters, politicians and celebrities, and some of the posts branded House of Commons speaker John Bercow a "t**", Tory leader Mr Cameron a "t***" and Lib Dem leader Mr Clegg "a b******".

His Twitter page has now been closed following criticism from his political opponents who described the remarks "vile" and "disgraceful".

Jamie Paterson, the Liberal Democrat candidate for Moray, said: "This is a huge error of judgment. I don't know how the Labour candidate expects to get elected using this sort of unparliamentary language."

And a Scottish Labour spokesperson said: "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."

Mr MacLennan has said "I am very sorry. I have been stupid and rightly paid a high price."