IT’S hard not to occasionally make yourself look a bit of a wally on Twitter.

Just a week or so ago some of the more gullible of the far-right latched on to an article by a parody news website saying Big Ben was to be renamed Massive Mohammad, claiming this was yet more evidence of their imaginary green and pleasant land being taken over by evil Muslim taxi drivers.

The internet being what it is. Once these mistakes are out there they’re out there for good, and even if they’re deleted it doesn’t take a tech wizard to drag them back up again.

Former Monmouthshire County Council member Graham Down fell victim to this at the weekend after he commented on a picture of two emergency services mascots – a large blue police helmet named Billy Blue, from South Wales Police, and his Wales Air Ambulance counterpart, a smiling mini helicopter named Ellie Copter – taken at Cardiff’s Pride event

Cllr Down, who currently serves on Mathern Community Council, apparently took exception to such tomfoolery, replying: “Shouldn’t they be out saving lives/catching criminals?”

Needless to say, his view that the two friendly-looking cartoon characters were bopping around a street festival and enjoying themselves in lieu of more serious pursuits was immediately latched on to by other Twitter users.

And they spurred on by a reply from the air ambulance’s Twitter account, which said: “Hi Graham, this isn’t our actual helicopter. Our 4 helicopters are currently on standby for absolutely everybody across Wales.”

Cllr Down wasn’t deterred though, and he commented on other Tweets about the Pride event – which celebrates the LGBT community across Wales – complaining that charity donations were apparently being used for members of the emergency services to have a nice jolly afternoon, despite repeatedly being told otherwise.

It would be nice to give Cllr Down, who describes himself on his Twitter account as “an all round pain in the butt”, the benefit of the doubt and think his concerns weren’t prompted by the nature of the event.

But this doesn’t seem to be the case.

Speaking to a fellow Argus reporter about the situation yesterday, Cllr Down added that he didn’t agree with “overt displays of homosexuality”.

It’s not the first time his views have landed him in a spot of bother either.

Maybe it’s something about the summer heat, as almost exactly a year ago the Argus reported Cllr Down had said there was no harm in using racist terms as long as they were used “with no hate involved”.

How exactly you can use a term created exclusively to demean an entire race of people without hate I don’t know.

While I struggle with saying anyone isn’t entitled to their views, I feel fully justified in making an exception in this case and saying Cllr Down’s opinions have no place in any society, let alone the UK in 2017.

Although as politicians go Cllr Down is fairly minor, the fact remains he’s a man elected to serve the interests of his community, at least some of whom won’t conform with his view of the world. I’m sure at least some of them would be alarmed to see the views he holds.

We’re a long way off the next round of council elections, but hopefully this little incident won’t be forgotten by the people of Mathern if he chooses to run again.

  •  In slightly less controversial news, we’re coming to the end of summer recess for our MPs and AMs.

I understand the Brexit Bill is going to be the hot topic for the first couple of weeks of Parliament, so no doubt that’ll be a nice, calm debate.

Or not.