The election turns nasty: Labour engineer poisonous Twitter storm

It's a sunny Sunday in a quiet suburban road. It's early evening, 6pm or thereabouts.

It's a sunny Sunday in a quiet suburban road. It's early evening, 6pm or thereabouts, and Richard Savage is walking down the road, towards his home.

He is cheered to see the "Re- elect Caroline Lucas" posters in so many of the windows in a relatively-prosperous neighbourhood in Preston Park ward.

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Then he sees the small group of Labour Party apparatchiks tramping the streets, door- to-door, the sort who tweet about their heroics on #LabourDoorstep.

Mr Savage - an unassuming secondary-school teacher, an Oxford-educated ex-professional cricketer - cannot help himself.

He is exasperated by the bile that has spewed for so long from a tiny minority of Labour candidates and supporters. If his wife had been there, perhaps he would have restrained himself. (Note: his wife is Ms Lucas, seeking re-election on May 7.)

His words are disputed. The volume with which he delivered them are also disputed. Sussex Police, however, insist they did not receive a complaint - despite what the rumour-mill implied.

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Mr Savage has told friends he definitely did not shout; he has insisted he was not abusive; nor he did call the four Labour activists - Julie Cattell, Warren Morgan, Neil Schofield, and Frances Bill - "poisonous". Nor did he come out of his house to engage with the Labour canvassers.

For the record, he did accuse Labour of "spreading poison" about his wife on social media. He was right.

He asked why Labour was targeting 'the best MP' in the country. A provocative question, but - in the circumstances - understandable.

So why has this trivial incident made news? Because of what happened next.

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Immediately after the incident, Labour activists deliberately engineered a Twitter storm, exaggerating what had happened and self-righteously using social media to take the moral high ground.

At the heart of Brighton and Hove Labour Party, there is a tiny minority of serial Tweeters, always ready to shower personal abuse as part of the pretence of political discourse. Not even fellow party members are exempt. One said: 'There are a handful of people who are cowards, who hide behind the keyboard '“ but will never confront you in debate.'

Brighton and Hove Independent can reveal that Ms Cattell - who is known by the Twitter handle of "@cooljool80" (aka JC4PP) - is one of them. Even as she asks voters in this marginal ward to support her as a Labour candidate. Even as one of her closest colleagues - a fellow council candidate - describes her as "utterly insufferable".

Ms Cattell lives two roads away from Mr Savage and Ms Lucas.

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A planning expert, with unhidden ambitions to be a member Brighton and Hove's planning committee, she has been responsible for more than 24,000 tweets. (How on earth does she find the time?)

Many of her tweets are vitriolic; many are aimed at Green Party supporters. She is little-known by the general public; she rarely engages in political debate in public meetings. Still she wants your vote.

We would have asked her for a comment, via Twitter. But she has 'blocked' @BrightonIndy.

(Update: Since publication of this article, Ms Cattell has changed her privacy settings so that only confirmed followers have access to her tweets. Fortunately, Brighton and Hove Independent took screengrabs of all the tweets in the Twitter storm before this change.)

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To look at the modestly-built, quietly-spoken Mr Savage, it is difficult to think how he could intimidate Mr Morgan, a political heavyweight, who claims he has been called a 'baby murderer' in the council chamber. (Journalists who regularly report meetings of the council have no memory of hearing such alleged abuse.)

A footnote: Neil Schofield (@SZeitblom) - a former Green party activist who is standing for Labour in Preston Park '“ did not join in the Twitter storm. He was, Mr Savage has told friends, 'perfectly civilised' during the Sunday-evening discussion. Another Labour activist said Mr Savage "lost it" for a few seconds, but conceded the incident ended amicably.

So where does all this nonsense leave us?

Labour - it seems - now wants to move on, put all this behind it. Of course it does.

After polluting the well of city politics for longer than is decent. Indeed, it is time to move on. From the twittery, to democracy.

On Thursday, May 7.