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30 September 2013updated 26 Sep 2015 11:16am

Ukip press officer refers to journalist as being of “ethnic extraction”

Gawain Towler described a female journalist in a text message that went astray as being "of some form of ethnic extraction".

By Media Mole

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 (£):

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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.

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