It would appear that Labour’s South East Cambridgeshire parliamentary candidate John Cowan (pic right) has been sacked for sending lurid emails in his previous life as a Lib Dem supporter (oh, he considered becoming Tory too!) This is my constituency, so I naturally have a special interest in it.

I highlighted his dubious background earlier this week, and the local Labour Party then said it was standing by their man. The Telegraph has now followed up this salacious tale too:

The Sunday Telegraph has today revealed messages left by Mr Cowan on online forums since 2005 in which he:

* Admitted illegally paying his cleaner cash-in-hand;

* Speculated on the death of Lady Thatcher;

* Boasted of his sexual exploits in graphic detail;

* Advertised for people to pose nude for his photographic portfolio; and

* Said he would not want his children to marry a Muslim.

The candidate defended his actions last night, saying that politicians should not be held to higher standards than the general public.

Cowan, a former glamour model manager, defended his actions last night, saying that politicians should not be held to higher standards than the general public.

He said: “I post what I think. I think to be honest there is a level of transparency there that isn’t normally associated with many people in politics.”

Here is a link showing a photo of him with Foreign Secretary David Miliband

Hat tip to The Red Rag blog for discovering that any evidence of Cowan as a parliamentary candidate has now vanished.

His blog says: “A quick trawl through Labour websites this morning shows some interesting things. The list of constituencies does not include South East Cambridgeshire. The PPC John Cowan (@JohnTheActivist) is not included in the list of Labour PPCs and the Labour Party South East Cambs website has been taken down. Cowan’s blog still refers to him as the PPC but Labour have clearly cut the strings. He is a PPC that has ceased to be!

“Another Labour incompetence is that since October last year Labour List has misspelled the url to his blog, incorrectly linking to a spoof site called Beware Mad Socialists. The spoof has long been known to bloggers but nobody has been inclined to tell Labour List. Well I suppose I have let that cat out of the bag but since Cowan is now finished no harm done there.”

It’s fair to assume that Labour will no longer be contesting this seat, currently held by Jim Paice, (pic left) Shadow Agriculture Secretary, one of the most decent and genuine MPs you could meet.

*ConservativeHome has followed up on this story too and points out  that technically it is not possible to sack Cowan since he has already been nominated as a Labour candidate, and as far as they 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.

UPDATE: 26 April: The Labour Party is considering expelling Cowan and the local news reporter today said supporters (are there any?) were still being asked to vote Labour, to vote for the party rather than for Cowan. Is this the first time the electorate is being asked to vote for a candidate who has been disowned by his party as his name will still appear on the voting papers?

UPDATE 27 April: Guido writes about how Labour MP Kerry McCarthy was warned about Cowan three months ago.