Election 2010: Abusive election hopeful Stuart MacLennan derails Labour

GORDON Brown tried to rally Labour's beleaguered supporters last night after his first day of campaigning in Scotland was derailed by the sacking of a candidate for posting offensive messages online.

• Stuart MacLennan

Labour faces more questions about how much senior members knew of Stuart MacLennan's foul-mouthed Twitter posts, in which he described people in the seat he was fighting as "depressed teuchters" and the elderly as "coffin-dodgers".

He also swore about opposition politicians and party colleagues.

Initially, Scottish Labour seemed to support the 24-year-old Moray candidate, describing him as "foolish", but by midday he had been summoned to the party's Glasgow headquarters and been sacked.

The Conservatives and SNP have demanded to know who in the Labour Party was aware of Mr MacLennan's tweets, which were posted both before and after he was chosen to contest the seat.

Former Scottish Labour leader Wendy Alexander, Schools Secretary Ed Balls, Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw, former deputy PM John Prescott and the Prime Minister's wife, Sarah Brown, are all understood to be followers.

An embattled Mr Brown, who had earlier demanded Mr MacLennan be sacked, tried to sound upbeat when addressing supporters in his native Kirkcaldy.

"I've been accused of being too serious, too focused on policy and sometimes too impatient. I plead guilty," he said. "I am serious and focused and impatient – because when people's jobs and businesses and life savings are on the line, it's not a time for small talk.

"I realise I'm not slick, and the honest truth is I don't really want to be. But there is one thing you can be sure of. I will fight and fight and fight, and then fight on, fight for you and your family – and I will not let you down."

He took another swipe at the backgrounds of David Cameron and George Osborne, when he promised to "govern not for … a privileged few, but for the ordinary people who are the strength and heart of our country".

However, Labour is having to defend the way it vets potential candidates after it emerged that the party in Moray was aware of Mr MacLennan's tweets before he was selected.

With so many MPs leaving Westminster after the expenses scandal, youthful candidates such as Mr MacLennan, who was organiser and secretary for Scottish Young Labour, were supposed to be part of a new generation of untainted politicians. He had stood unchallenged for the Labour candidacy in Moray.

Barry Jarvis, a Moray councillor and member of the local Labour party, said: "I never had any reservations about him at all. I was aware he had a Twitter account, I followed him, I assumed it was all meant in a humorous way, as all these things are.

"To be honest, some of the posts seemed quite tongue-in-cheek – that's my personal opinion."

Initially, Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy and Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray appeared to back Mr MacLennan yesterday, despite him branding Labour MP Diane Abbott a "f****** idiot".

"He still has the backing of the party, he is still the candidate," Mr Gray said yesterday morning, at the launch of a Labour poster portraying the General Election as a two-horse race ahead of the Grand National.

However, the party later said it had believed the tweets were historic. When it discovered some had been posted after he had been selected as a candidate, it took the decision to sack him.

On the campaign trail, Mr Brown said: "We cannot have people standing as candidates for the Labour Party who express these views."

Mr Murphy said: "He was keen to engage voters through Twitter, but that's no excuse for the rubbish and offensive and hurtful comments that he made."