British comedian Rufus Hound has come in for round criticism after sharing an idiotic conspiracy theory surrounding the events of the terrorist atrocity in Manchester this week.

The 38 year old stand-up comic, presenter and actor, real name Robert Simpson, quote-tweeted a message that has since been deleted, which read: “Given that the attacker was known to MI5, the timing seems fortunate for May that an attack ‘slips through’ as Labour are making progress...”

Rufus HoundIdiotic: Rufus Hound re-tweeted a ludicrous conspiracy theory about the Manchester attack

He later added to that: “Apologies for mild tin-hattedness, but I’ve been thinking the same. Esp. as she was Home Secretary for so long. #reichstagFire.” This hashtag was a reference to the famous arson at the German parliament building in 1933 that Hitler blamed on Communists and which facilitated his rise to power as he declared a state of emergency.

Shortly afterwards, Hound was rightly lambasted by several of his 1.2 million followers, who called him out for using his platform for spreading groundless conspiracy theories. However, he stopped short of apologising, instead choosing to row back a little on his previous comments.

“Okay, okay. Look, I’m probably from too cynical, but I struggle believing our establishment is incapable of great evil. If you’re not, sorry.”

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“I guess, I’m not really alleging it as true, more that I don’t believe our establishment is incapable of such evil. Esp. during an election.”

However, the suggestion that Theresa May allowed the incident to happen in order to receive a boost in poll ratings still lingered. When the criticism continued, Hound once again took to Twitter to apologise slightly more sincerely.

“Oh, man. This thing has gone mental. I can only apologise to anyone who thinks I meant that tweet lightly. I genuinely didn’t. But we’re being governed by people who start wars and bomb innocents and whose austerity is killing our brothers and sisters. But I’m sorry. I really am. I guess the whole #hypernormalistaion of bizarre and inhuman acts has made me awful. So, I’m just sorry. Sorry.”

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