A PROMINENT SNP politician has been urged to apologise after calling the leader of his local council a “d*ck” on Twitter.

Chris McEleny, leader of the opposition group on Inverclyde Council and a former candidate for deputy leader of the SNP, attacked Labour’s Stephen McCabe on Wednesday.

Mr McCabe said he hoped Mr McEleny would say sorry for the insult but he was “not sure he has it in his character to apologise”.

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Mr McEleny stuck by the remark and said Mr McCabe had a "weird obsession" for contacting him to complain about the SNP.

The name-calling followed a bad-tempered exchange on Twitter between the two men over the forthcoming budget vote on the council.

After Mr McEleny said all councillors had been provided with the SNP’s alternative plan for a fully balanced budget, Mr McCabe said Mr McEleny “wants us to iognore the views of our residents and our staff and just get on and agree £ms of cuts…”.

Mr McEleny replied to Mr McCabe: “Do you go out of your way to come across as a d*ck at all times or is it natural?

“If you don’t have an opinion on the budget, what services are important, and you want to just wait for people to tell you where to spend money, then you’re entitled to that view.”

Mr McCabe told the Herald: “I am very disappointed that he would use such language.

“Unfortunately it is not out of character. He has made a habit of it over the years.

“I don’t intend to make a formal complaint about this incident. I will leave it to his national party and local group to take the action they think is appropriate.”

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Mr McEleny said Mr McCabe’s behaviour was entirely consistent with being a d*ck.

He said: “I think the guy has sent me something like over 100 messages late at night over the past while on Twitter. It’s certainly the sort of behaviour that the colloquialism implied.

“However it’s really not an issue I’ll be giving any further thought to when I’m in the process of trying to set our councils budget for the coming year.

"If I was offering any advice to Stephen, he perhaps should be spending more time concentrating on that late at night instead of this weird obsession he has of contacting me to somehow relate everything that’s gone wrong in the world to the SNP and me.”

An SNP spokesperson said: "We do not condone this sort of language, even when provoked or trolled, and we have spoken to the councillor concerned."