Last night I think many people in the UK were surprised to see news rolling in of an attempted military coup in Turkey.
Fast forward to this morning and the first few details of that story are trickling in, with the coup apparently having failed and with at least 192 dead (47 of them civilians).
For many their first reaction will have been shock, and they will have gone straight to a trusted news source to try and find out more.
That wasn’t the case for all though. Oh no. Jon Trickett, a member of Labour’s Shadow Cabinet thought that the best thing to do after hearing this news was to use it to make a political point on Twitter.
Why, I ask you would you think that this situation was one to make light of? What possesses you to think that the death of nearly 50 civilians is fodder for your political jousting? It’s not, and Jon Trickett was very wrong to use it as such.
Worse still is I can’t believe that people have to say this. I can’t believe that someone charged with leading the Labour Party, holding the Government to account, and representing our members could be so utterly juvenile. Is this the kind of behaviour we want from someone who could be a Government Minister? Do you look at this and think his decision making is up to scratch? Whatever you think, I think we should be able to agree that it was crass and I hope he regrets it.
He has since apologised…sort of. In that way that people do when they’re not really sorry but they think they should retract what they’ve said to save face. “Okay, okay. Tweet deleted and withdrawn. Shouldn’t tweet when feeling I’ll (sic). I apologise sincerely.” So there we have it everyone. Turns out he probably didn’t mean it, he was just feeling under the weather, and we all know how that makes us tweet stupid and undignified things. Uh…yeah, sure Jon.
There’s not a lot more to say on this. It was stupid, and I hope he realises it. But the very fact that one of the Labour party’s most senior politicians could even think about saying that publicly is a real marker of how very low our politics has become. It was more important to Jon to make an immature political point to other members of his party, than it was to do anything else. Like other MPs he could have directed people to the Foreign Office, he could have shared the latest updates, or maybe even have said something statesman like about the situation, given his current position in our party. But no, none of those things crossed his mind. And that should be the most worrying thing of all.
Politics on the side 