More idiocy from the Conservative Party’s master of historical fiction Daniel Kawczynski – he of the Opposite Land tweet claiming the UK received no Marshall Plan money, when it actually received the most – this time on Sky News.

Confronted with the errors in his tweet by presenter Adam Boulton, he responded: “I was promised you wouldn’t raise that,” showing off his thorough understanding of the free press and accountability to boot.

Admitting he’d “got into a lot of trouble” over the tweet, Kawczynski still refused to withdraw it or to agree with Boulton that it’s “factually wrong.”

Instead, he blamed his error on Twitter’s character limit.

“Really it’s very difficult for MPs to get everything across in the limited number of characters,” he argued, reciting what your mole believes to be a verbatim Churchill quote.

Watch it here:

"It’s very difficult for MPs to get everything across in the limited number of characters."@adamboultonSKY asks Conservative MP @DKShrewsbury about his incorrect tweet claiming that Britain didn't get any money from the US after the Second World War. pic.twitter.com/K6PxprSoJq — Alan McGuinness (@Alan_McGuinness) February 12, 2019

Twitter’s character limit is 280, so let’s see what ol’ Marshall Mithers MP could’ve worked with.

So, he used precisely 276 characters in his original tweet:

Britain helped to liberate half of Europe. She mortgaged herself up to eye balls in process. No Marshall Plan for us only for Germany. We gave up war reparations in 1990. We put £370 billion into EU since we joined. Watch the way ungrateful EU treats us now. We will remember.

Here’s how he could’ve done it with four more characters to play with:

Britain helped to liberate half of Europe. She mortgaged herself up to eye balls in process. Yes Marshall Plan for us not only for Germany. We gave up war reparations in 1990. We put £370 billion into EU since we joined. Watch the way ungrateful EU treats us now. We will remember

Bingo! 280!

He could also have used far fewer characters:

Marshall Plan for us

Simplicity is key.