Twitter can be a hazardous tool in politics.
The Labour Party was the latest political group to become the victim of social media mockery today after tweeting a seemingly ground-breaking policy that every person in Britain should be given their own owl.
The message, which has since been deleted, prompted a flurry of amused responses from its 47,000 followers today.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck">We had hoped our compulsory owl guarantee would be a head turning policy, but sadly it's no longer going to take flight. <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23tweettwoo&src=hash" class="body-link" data-vars-item-name="BL-226951-https://twitter.com/search?q=%23tweettwoo&src=hash" data-vars-event-id="c23">#tweettwoo</a>— Labour Press Team (@labourpress) <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/labourpress/statuses/479623609313677312" class="body-link" data-vars-item-name="BL-226951-https://twitter.com/labourpress/statuses/479623609313677312" data-vars-event-id="c23">June 19, 2014</a>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck">For those asking, the owl tweet was a result of our twitter account being hacked. Hopefully we're out of the woods now.— Labour Press Team (@labourpress) <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/labourpress/statuses/479629744666054657" class="body-link" data-vars-item-name="BL-226951-https://twitter.com/labourpress/statuses/479629744666054657" data-vars-event-id="c23">June 19, 2014</a>
Lucy Vine said: "You know... I think a free owl would actually genuinely make me vote Labour."
Adam Clarke posted: "Not quite sure having an owl should qualify as a universal benefit, but it probably would win over a few voters for Labour."
Former deputy leader John Prescott wrote: "I've always been Owl Labour #OwlMOV."
It said: "For those asking, the owl tweet was a result of our twitter account being hacked. Hopefully we're out of the woods now."
The gaffe is certainly not the first time (and undoubtedly won't be the last) that a political party has made a mistake on Twitter.
Earlier this month the Liberal Democrats, during a speech in which leader Nick Clegg was outlining the party's future, were mocked after they posted; "We didn't go into govt because it was the right thing to do, we went into govt because it was the right thing to do".
And in April, the Conservatives were forced to apologise after they tweeted a picture of former Labour leader Gordon Brown and his wife attending a WWII memorial service with the caption "All's Well That Ends Well #LabourPlays".
A Tory source later admitted the picture, which saw the couple's image superimposed on to the background of Downing Street, was "inappropriate".
