Labour candidate exposed as having posed offensive messages online and been expelled from the Lib Dems for sending sexual emails

Nominations have already closed for the general election, else I doubt whether John Cowan would still be Labour's candidate challenging James Paice in South East Cambridgeshire this morning.

Several days ago, the Cambridge News exposed the former glamour model manager as having been expelled from the Lib Dems in 2004 for sending “sexual emails to a number of political female figures”.

The Sunday Telegraph has now picked up the story and in investigating him has exposed that in posts on online forums he has, among other things:

• Boasted of his sexual exploits in graphic detail
• Advertised for people to pose nude for his photographic portfolio
• Speculated about the death of Margaret Thatcher

More in the Sunday Telegraph.

10.45pm update:

The Red Rag blog is suggesting that Cowan has been sacked as a Labour candidate.

This is of course not technically possible since he has already been nominated as a Labour candidate and as far as I know he will have to appear as such on the ballot paper.

However, his name has been removed from the list of Labour candidates on the party's official website and the link to what was the page about him has been disabled.

Below is a screen grab of the cache of what it did say - and the link to that constituency website is also broken.

Jonathan Isaby