Tories refuse to drop council candidate who called Volodymyr Zelenskyy an "enemy of the people"

New on the Mirror website:

A Tory election candidate branded Volodymyr Zelensky an "enemy of the people" as he suggested we should stop supporting Ukraine.

Ian Glass, who is standing to represent the party on Hartlepool Borough Council, dismissed the war hero as a “puppet”. ...

Mr Glass, a personal trainer, posted his criticism of Mr Zelensky when the Ukrainian President visited the UK in February last year. After Mr Sunak tweeted a photo of the two leaders together, he wrote: "The puppet installed president (after coup) meeting an unelected PM, both enemies of the people."

In another post in January this year, he suggested that Vladimir Putin's regime isn't as bad as it's presented and hit out at the sums the Government has pledged to help Ukraine defend itself. He wrote: "It's over with Sunak and Crew, people will not vote for Cons, they sick of the boats, money going to Ukraine and this BS that Russia wants to rule the world."

The Mirror says the Conservatives have not responded to requests for a comment on Mr Glass and his opinions, but the local party has continued to promote him as a candidate.

I'm blogging about this because I suspect Mr Glass is not so untypical of today's Tory activist. As I said after a fake Tory campaign on speed limits in Wales was exposed earlier this year:

It does confirm my impression that the average Tory activist is now less likely to be a pillar of the local business community than a keyboard warrior or social media troll.

If these new-look Tories like fascism so much, they should go and live in Moscow and see how much they like it then.