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BlackBerry fumbles lead to red faces

Dan Ilet ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 09 Feb 2005 12:15 GMT

BBC journalists found themselves on the receiving end of an abusive email accidentally sent by Alastair Campbell, the Prime Minister's former chief of communications, on Tuesday.

The remarks contained a series of expletives about journalists on the BBC's Newsnight programme after they investigated his position in the government's election campaign.

According to reports on Wednesday, Campbell meant to email a colleague to indicate he wanted to say "fuck off and cover something important you twats!" to the Newsnight team, on his BlackBerry device, but accidentally sent the email to the journalists he was writing about.

A Newsnight spokesperson confirmed that one of the programme's journalists had received the email from Campbell.

The remarks were made after Campbell was linked with pro-Labour Internet posters, in which Conservative leader Michael Howard was depicted as a flying pig, and, also as the Dickensian character Fagin, which have been accused of being anti-semitic.

According to the Evening Standard, Newsnight later received a second email from Campbell suggested the first email was a joke and should be ignored.