The leader of the Green Party on Oxfordshire County Council has defended controversial historic social media posts as “banter” and "irony" following criticism.
Councillor Ian Middleton has come under fire for comments he made between 2011 and 2013, before he was elected as councillor for Kidlington South.
The posts on Twitter, now known as X, include asking a woman if it was “the wrong time of the month” and calling child actors from a television sitcom “plug ugly”.
READ MORE: Just Stop Oil protester from Oxford guilty of Ashes trespass
The Oxford Mail was informed about the tweets by a member of the public, who described the posts as “disgusting and degrading.”
Mr Middleton said the tweets were not made seriously and claimed they had been resurfaced by people looking to “undermine” him when approached by the Oxford Mail for comment.
He said he had not deleted any of the tweets.
"Is it the wrong time of the month?"
In August 2013, Mr Middleton had a Twitter spat with the comedian and broadcaster Hardeep Singh Kohli over a joke he had made on a BBC radio show about feeding bacon to a pig.
As part of the dispute, he replied to a female Twitter user: “Calm down luv! Haven’t you got a sense of humour? Or is it the wrong time of the month? #irony”
Mr Middleton said the tweet was intended to show that you “can't excuse saying offensive things by simply adding ‘where's your sense of humour?"
“The comment was specifically tagged as #irony to clarify that I was not intending it to be taken seriously,” he said.
“Taken in isolation, out of context, 10 years later, it of course looks appalling, but I was trying to make a point about how most people would quite rightly find a comment like that offensive and wouldn’t appreciate being told to get a sense of humour about it.
“There is no way it was meant seriously and of course it’s not language I would ever normally use.”
"Plug ugly and tubby"
Another tweet, from November 18, 2011, targeted the child actors in the popular BBC sitcom Outnumbered.
“I think they’re all plug ugly and tubby personally” he tweeted in response to another Twitter user. “They were much better looking as children.”
Asked about this exchange, Mr Middleton said it was “a bit of banter between me and a friend.”
READ MORE: Wilko Oxford's final moments as store closes down today
“In retrospect it seems like an unnecessarily unkind comment about the actors involved but I doubt very much that they would have been troubled by my opinion of their looks then and would be even less concerned about it 12 years later,” he said.
"I'd be that mad bloke looking up their skirts"
A different exchange from November 28, 2011, saw him respond to a now-deleted tweet: “Think I’d be that mad bloke looking up their skirts. #diditweetthatoutloud?”
Mr Middleton said he had “absolutely no idea” what the tweet referred to but thought it looked like “jokey banter between friends.”
He said he couldn’t comment further without knowing the full context.
Since he was approached for comment, Mr Middleton has protected his tweets, which means they can only be viewed by accounts that he follows.
The Green Party is part of the ruling alliance on the county council with the Liberal Democrats.
The county council said no disciplinary action would be taken against Mr Middleton under the code of conduct because the tweets were posted a considerable time before he was a councillor.
But a spokesman for the authority added that the tweets were “clearly not well judged.”
Tory councillor Liam Walker, who represents Hanborough and Minster Lovell, also criticised the tweets.
He said: “Far be it for me to give advice to Cllr Middleton about his use of Twitter but there does seem to be a regular pattern emerging with him trying to create division on social media.
“His behaviour around the Oxford United stadium proposal highlighted this and many residents in his own community have commented how unprofessional he’s been.
READ MORE: Oxford petition to win Botley Road shops compensation
“These latest tweets that have been found are equally concerning and show previous behaviour of him being rude or offensive on social media.
“The residents of Kidlington rightly expect and deserve better than this sort of divisive behaviour from their councillor.”
Mr Middleton claimed the resurfacing of his tweets was part of an effort by a group of Oxford United fans running an “orchestrated campaign of harassment and bullying” against him over his resistance to selling land in Kidlington to the club for its new stadium.
He claimed they had “spent weeks trawling” through his 50,000 posts to undermine him.
He said he had suffered “implied threats and some pretty vile comments” from fans over the last two years and provided screenshots to back up his claims.
One poster on an internet forum said they would not want to be in the shoes of opponents to the Oxford United stadium plans because “people know who they are, and where they live.”
Mr Middleton said: “I’m thick-skinned enough to ignore most of it, but anything with an with implied threat is less easy to ignore.”
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel