Peter Rhodes on the peril of old tweets, re-hashing the Novichok case and greeting a baby called Sam

He has been sacked by Disney for tweeting offensive jokes about rape and paedophilia. They are certainly revolting but they were also clearly meant as jokes. Before you think "serve him right," consider this. Gunn is a persistent critic of Donald Trump. He was brought down by Trump supporters who trawled through his Twitter feeds - dating back ten years.

HAND on heart, how many people have not uttered something in the past that was a poor-taste joke back then but is utterly unforgivable by today's standards? Attitudes have changed enormously and the pace of change quickens. And it's not only the things you wrote decades ago that should worry you. What about the tweets you posted today?

FOR example, how many students have gleefully denounced their lecturers or anyone else in authority as "gammon"? This is a term of abuse used to describe the pink face of a middle-aged white man losing his temper over politics. Supposing, five years from now, the High Court rules that "gammon," being an insult based on complexion, is as racist as the N-word? All your tweets and emails containing "gammon" will still be out there in cyberspace for your enemies, to find. The world has changed beneath your feet. You may think of yourself as an enlightened liberal but suddenly you're a racist - based on evidence from years ago - and your boss has no choice but to sack you.

COMMON sense suggests there should be a cut-off point, an amnesty on opinions expressed long ago. If not, then I foresee a dark and fearful future when we will all be denouncing each other for ancient tweets and no-one will benefit - apart, of course, from the lawyers.

ACCORDING to the Daily Telegraph a few days ago: "Russian agents responsible for the Novichok poisonings in Salisbury sent a coded message to Moscow which included the phrase, 'The package has been delivered'." The Telegraph report seems remarkably similar to this: "RAF spooks intercepted a message to Moscow saying ‘the package has been delivered’ shortly after Sergei Skripal and daughter Yulia were poisoned." As reported by the Daily Mail - on April 9.

THE truth is that nobody knows what the truth is about the Salisbury affair. But beware of "sources close to the inquiry" which gave us last week's confident claim - later denied - that police had identified "a number of Russians" from CCTV footage. As you may recall, back in April it was "sources close to the inquiry" which told us the Skripals were unaware of being attacked because the Novichok was sprayed on them by an unseen drone hovering high above. Yeah, right.

A FRIEND proudly introduced me to Sam, his two-month-old grandson. So naturally I said: "Sam, Sam pick up thy musket." The family looked at me as though I was mad. Whatever happened to the Great British race-memory?