Jeremy Hunt calls for every older person to die 'with dignity and respect' in badly worded campaign tweet

The Tory leadership race is hotting up and the hopeful candidates have released their campaigns, including Jeremy Hunt. However, one of his slogans hasn't exactly gone down well.

Last night, Channel 4 hosted a debate between the main contenders to replace Theresa May as leader of the Conservative party, with Jeremy Hunt, Rory Stewart, Dominic Raab, Sajid Javid, and Michael Gove battling it out for the top job. Boris Johnson, however, who is currently the favourite to win the top job, stayed away from the 90-minute hustings.

As part of his campaign, foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt decided he'd champion the rights of older people to die with dignity and respect, however, a tweet in which he shared the sentiment hit a bum note, to say the least.

In a tweet, he shared the slogan, writing:

Every older person should die with dignity and respect. 

We should be the party who sorts it out. 

Right, OK? Well, that's more than a little bit creepy really, isn't it?

Instead of calling for the protection of the elderly, the tweet came across as suggesting a cull of all of those who use a bus pass, and it also seemed to suggest that the Tories would very helpfully be the party to oblige.

It goes without saying that social media users thought exactly the same and began to share the slogan, which quickly went viral.

Many thought it sounded... threatening.

That escalated quickly!

Thoroughly nice chap, that Hunt is.

Well, that's one option, but we were thinking of just more of a... cruise?

Helluva pitch, when you think about it!

That's just pretty... bizarre really?

In fact, it brings back memories of another classic Hunt gaffe...

What can we say really...

Perhaps this wasn't *quite* the inspirational message that Hunt was attempting to convey as part of his campaign...

More: Jeremy Hunt asks broadcasters to stop calling him 'Jeremy C***'

More: Dominic Raab's latest Tory leadership campaign video taken apart for multiple claims about Brexit