A Scottish council has been forced to apologise after sending an offensive tweet to Alistair Darling during Monday’s referendum debate.
A discussion between the leader of the Better Together campaign and Yes campaign head Alex Salmond was aired live on BBC TV this week.
Almost an hour into the debate, East Renfrewshire’s official Twitter account sent the message: ‘Alistair shut yer pus!!!’.
The tweet was retweeted at least 85 times before being taken down by the town hall, which has now launched an internal investigation into the message.
A council spokesperson said: ‘We would like to apologise for any offence caused by an inappropriate tweet during the referendum debate.
‘This was an unacceptable use of the council's Twitter account. This would appear to be a genuine human error, which we are investigating, and measures are in place to make sure that this does not happen again.’
