Another day, another insight into how Labour Party politics works.
On Saturday night a particularly crass tweet was sent from the account of Richard Wilson – Labour’s prospective parliamentary candidate for Guildford in 2015 – blaming the football hooliganism in Marseilles on Ukip supporters.
Whoever sent the message from Wilson’s account wrote: “Violent, racist, drunken Ukip supporters have disgraced our country in #Marseille. On behalf of the UK, I apologise for my fellow citizens.”
The author of the tweet had no evidence that any Ukip supporters were involved in the rioting.
They simply chose to use a criminally violent event, in which dozens were seriously hurt, for their own political ends.
The fact that this baseless generalisation was so inadvisable seems to have occurred even to whoever wrote the tweet, in the end: it was swiftly deleted.
For that reason we are re-publishing it today.
Wilson, a pilot, describes himself as an “Airbus Captain”.
He is also campaigning against Brexit.
If he cannot keep control of his own twitter account, should he be in charge of an aeroplane?