I have to admit, I don't pay as much attention to local politics in Ipswich, our county town, as I might. Whilst I work in the heart of the town, and thus am there five days of each week, I can't say that I have an attachment to it which is anything other than functional. The shopping isn't as good as that of Norwich, or even Bury St Edmunds, and you just sense that it hasn't always been well-served by a County administration that is dominated by people who don't live there.
And, in truth, those of the town's politicians who are on social media often come across as unnecessarily aggressive and confrontational. It's the sort of politics that I was happy to leave behind when I left London nearly a decade ago.
But, bits and pieces of the online debate do cross my timeline, and, on Friday, I noticed that Nadia Cenci, the leader of the Conservative Group on Ipswich Borough Council, had made a comment about the survivors of the Grenfell Tower disaster which was, at best, grossly insensitive and, at worst, downright unpleasant.
Reaction was instantaneous - it tends to be when there's blood in the water - and hostile too. Nadia defended herself. It was a mistake, she'd meant to refer to the left-wing activists causing trouble, an interpretation which didn't have much to commend it. And then, she was gone. Six years of tweets deleted at a stroke.
Given that in her Twitter bio, she described herself as "outspoken female", it seemed odd that she'd simply bolted for the hills like that. After all, if you are outspoken, you stand by your comments, unless they're factually inaccurate, I'd have thought. Admittedly, 'outspoken' is a word used instead of the more accurate 'rude', 'unpleasant', or even 'callous', and whilst it may not reflect who Nadia really is (and I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here, Nadia), I was reminded that, surprisingly often, Twitter is a window into people's souls.
Nadia had a series of choices to make when this incident blew up. First, to apologise or stand by her initial thought. She did neither, instead trying to weasel out of it with the old "it was badly worded and I meant something completely different" routine. It seldom works. And then, once the explanation had failed to convince, a credible apology might have dealt with the matter. Unfortunately, deleting your whole Twitter oeuvre leads the more cynical to wonder what else was there.
And now, the story has reached the Daily Mail at a time when the Conservative Party leadership appear desperate to be loved. You wouldn't be optimistic for Nadia's future, even after her fulsome apology. It may be time for her to do some good works by way of rehabilitation. And maybe reintegrate back into social media society over the coming months... with a little more caution this time, perhaps, Nadia?
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