A text message from a Ukip press officer has caused controversy by referring to a female journalist as being “of some form of ethnic extraction”.
Gawain Towler, UKIP’s head of media and a candidate for the European Parliament, meant to send the text message about the Evening Standard‘s Kiran Randhawa to a colleague but accidentally sent it to someone else.
Here’s the text message (thanks to @suttonnick for the photo):
Towler told Laura Pitel of the Times (£):
If I’d got the right name I would have used it but I didn’t so I needed to give a head up . . . I was thinking of using the term ‘babe’ but they aren’t going to have the first idea what I’m going on about.
Paul Waugh of PoliticsHome tweets:
UKIP press officer under fire for using phrase ‘of some form of ethnic extraction’ is pointing out his own partner is Asian
— Paul Waugh (@paulwaugh) September 30, 2013