Uxbridge Tory says politicians aren't allowed to have a sense of humour

@JamesCousins on Twitter has drawn my attention to this story about an Uxbridge Conservative councillor who has been ousted by his local Tory party and barred from standing as a candidate by them because of a joke quiz he did on Facebook entitled: "How sexy am I?".

This is a quote from Christopher White, branch chairman of Uxbridge Conservative Group:

"There is the issue of your lack of judgment over inappropriate material being placed by you on the social networking site Facebook. With deep regret, we have decided not to reselect you as a council candidate for the 2010 council elections."

Now there may be more going on than meets the eye here and there could be other reasons for this action but if it is true that he has been ousted because of his joke quiz then I am pretty much speechless.

As I have said time and again, what sort of people do we want in politics? Normal people who have a sense of humour and do things like jokey quizzes on Facebook to share with their friends or bland automatons who never say or do anything even vaguely controversial or indeed interesting?

I think it is clear what sort Mr White wants for his local Conservative party.

There is now a group on Facebook called "Tell the Tories to Re-Select Geoff Courtenay" which I have just joined.