http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1175147/Anger-junior-minister-blames-Hairy-Angel-Susan-Boyle-swine-flu-pandemic.html
Anger as junior minister blames 'Hairy Angel' Susan Boyle for swine flu pandemic


Thank goodness ministers are taking the swine flu outbreak so seriously. Or at least some of them are.

Just as Gordon Brown was gravely announcing that two more Britons had been diagnosed with the virus, one government figure, I can disclose, decided that the potential pandemic was a great opportunity for a joke.

In a bizarre attempt at humour, junior minister Sion Simon suggested that unlikely Britain's Got Talent singing sensation Susan Boyle is to blame.
Blog too far: Labour MP Sion Simon

Blog too far: The 'Hairy Angel' Susan Boyle and Labour MP Sion Simon

The MP for Birmingham Erdington, 40, posted his comment online on his Twitter page, writing: 'I'm not saying Susan Boyle caused swine flu. I'm just saying that nobody had swine flu, she sang on TV, people got swine flu.'

Tories were horrified by what were seen as 'insensitive' remarks.

Even fellow Labour MPs were aghast. 'It's infantile, isn't it,' one says. 'Hasn't he got enough to do?'

For Simon, the minister for further education, was posting what he thought was a witty aside on the crisis just as it was confirmed a 12-year-old Devon girl had contracted the virus.

This is not the first time that grammar school-educated Simon, who read PPE at Oxford University, has made an online blunder.

In 2006, he posted a spoof of David Cameron's video blog on YouTube, in which, pretending to be Cameron, he offered people one of his children and the opportunity to sleep with his wife.

Both main parties condemned the stunt as 'tasteless', while an unrepentant Simon said Cameron's attempts to reach out to youth culture was 'pathetic'.

Simon was also part of a failed plot to force Tony Blair to resign.

Shortly after becoming Prime Minister, Brown appointed Simon vice-chair of the Labour Party.

Last night, after I contacted his office, a recalcitrant Simon removed the offensive comment from his Twitter page and made the following posting: 'Earlier I repeated a joke that was in poor taste, which I now regret.

'I apologise wholeheartedly for any distress or embarrassment caused.'