Doug Beattie picked the worst time possible to tweet his joke. I was checking the news to see what else to write about and there is nothing much happening locally at the moment so all the media eyes are still on the beleaguered UUP leader. People have been combing his previous Tweets and coming up with some real clangers.
In case you missed it – some tweets from Doug Beattie which Belfast Live discovered. pic.twitter.com/e6XZnxSa0R
— Scott Moore | Scomo 🇺🇦 (@ScottMoore0) January 24, 2022
Still the UUP have backed their leader (for now).
UUP backs Doug Beattie to continue as leader following tweet scandal https://t.co/UNl92GSK53 pic.twitter.com/2JrdWZdUDm
— Belfast Telegraph (@BelTel) January 25, 2022
Meanwhile Edwin Poots has issued defamation proceedings against Beattie. This seems like a real over reaction. If I was Edwin I would be sitting back and taking the high moral ground. People in glass houses and all that…
This guy?? Oh now he worries about being offensive 🧐 pic.twitter.com/WRzQCNwKaD
— Gem (@gemmacaddell86) January 25, 2022
The contagion is spreading with journos and the Twitteratti busy examining the tweets of all our local politicans. Likeable Green Party Belfast Councillor Brian Smyth came to the attention of Stephen Nolan. From the Belfast Telegraph:
Referencing a tweet from May 16, 2013, Mr Nolan read out the post attributed to Mr Smyth which said: “The girl from Israel on Eurovision has impressive cleavage. I think that is the selling point as the song is crap.”
For any paranoid politicians out there, here are instructions on how to delete your Twitter account.
I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism, I am not a member of any political party. Oddly for a member of the Slugger team, I am not that interested in daily politics, preferring to write about big ideas in society. When not stuck in front of a screen, I am a parkrun Run Director.
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