Leading article: Twisted tweets

It's said that this will be Britain's first internet election.

By which is meant that the new media, from Twitter to Facebook and the rest, could influence the outcome, rather as, it is thought, they helped Barack Obama to the US Presidency. In the event, the first tangible effect of the new media here has been considerably smaller in scale and rather sordid. Stuart MacLennan was sacked yesterday as Labour's candidate for Moray, after getting carried away on Twitter.

It's hard to imagine what possessed him to tweet his heart out as he did. Did he not realise that he would come across less as a super-clever politico than as a juvenile unsuited to elected office? Or had he been too frequent a visitor to his constituency's famed distilleries?

Not so long ago David Cameron apologised after saying that "the instantness" of Twitter meant that sometimes "too many twits might make a twat". It's no party political judgement to say that MacLennan of Moray proves him right.