Council press officer quits after proposing "napalm" solution

Published Jun 8 2012, 20:51 BST  |  By Paul Millar

A council press officer has quit after making comments about Streatham.

Sam Masters, who represented Lambeth in London, suggested that the only way to improve the high street would be to destroy it.



Masters wrote on Twitter: "Having spent a considerable amount of time in Streatham, my solutions for supporting the High Road mostly involve napalm."

His comments outraged politicians, business leaders and residents of the Streatham area, reports The Daily Telegraph.

Streatham MP Chuka Umunna immediately called on Masters to apologise, issuing a statement saying: "Part of a local authority press officer's job is to promote an area not run it down, whether on Twitter or any other platform.

"Is it too much to ask for an apology Sam? My constituents pay your salary."

Lee Alley, chair of the Streatham Business Board, said he would have lodged a formal complaint had Masters not quit.

"We always wondered what the council thought about Streatham - now we know," he commented.

Before deleting his Twitter account, Masters did apologise for his actions, admitting: "Clearly they were ill considered, ill advised and very offensive to many.

"For that I would like to apologise. That I didn't apologise sooner is also of profound regret to me. What was supposed to be a silly joke on a social networking website has offended many people, and for that I am genuinely sorry.

"I spent more than four years working everyday in Streatham in my last job. Anybody who knew me during that period would, I hope, testify that I worked hard to champion issues that were important to the people who lived there."