Appallingly immature but still a candidate

Labour's response to Shahid Hussain's outbursts on Twitter has been to give him a bit of a telling off and hope the whole thing goes away.

Kevin Madge, Labour's leader in Carmarthenshire, weighed in with his tuppence worth in the Carmarthen Journal:

I have pointed out to him that Twitter is dangerous and it's not something I support.

I don't use it and I do not want any of our political candidates to use it — it's only for young people and not a good thing to use for politics.

Phil Grice, Labour secretary in Carmarthenshire, described Hussain's comments as "appallingly immature".


But Shahid Hussain, who is an immature 31, is still the party's official candidate, and Kevin Madge said the party would be putting resources into Glanaman, presumably in order to get Shahid elected as a county councillor.

Let's go back to Kev's comments. Is Twitter dangerous? Well it's a bit like everything else, isn't it? Facebook and e-mail can be dangerous too. So is putting pen to paper if you write something you may live to regret. If you're a real idiot, you could poke your eye out with the pen.

Kevin Madge may not know anything about the social media, but he does like talking. He cannot get through a council meeting without bobbing up and down, usually several times. Sometimes he goes off for a trip down memory lane, reminiscing about going to Top Rank in Swansea and the good old days when people got legless on cider and had a good bop. Or he reminisces about the bad old days, and contrasts them with the new Golden Age of Carmarthenshire ushered in by Meryl and Mark, his "dream team".

The Labour councillors behind him sit stony faced, trying not to show their embarrassment.

When Meryl got into trouble for calling protesters "rabble", Kev came to her rescue. You could tell she  would really rather he hadn't. "Come on, it's the sort of thing we've all done", he said. "I've done it, you've done it, we've all done it." The "it" in question was of course engaging mouth before putting brain into gear.

Yes, we've all done it, but then we are not all deputy leader of Carmarthenshire County Council making decisions about other people's lives. And unlike Kevin Madge, most of us don't do it every time we speak.

See, Kev, speaking can be dangerous too.

Look at Shahid, for instance. When asked if he had deleted his Twitter account, he blurted out, "Following orders, yes." Actually, that bit of probably unintended honesty was to his credit.

What Kevin Madge is telling us is that it is OK to stand for election if you're stupid and hold lots of nasty prejudices. Just as long as you don't tell anyone.