There are few more embarrassing things in the closet for a Conservative politician than having once called Nelson Mandela a terrorist.
It was a phrase that muddied the legacy of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.
In 2006, David Cameron apologised and denounced Thatcher's policies, saying she was wrong to have branded Mandela's African National Congress as 'terrorists' and to have opposed sanctions against the apartheid South Africa.
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It was, embarrassingly, only in 2008, that Mandela was removed from the US terrorism watch list by President George W Bush.
But on Twitter, less than an hour after President Jacob Zuma announced Mandela's death, aged 95, it seems some people still haven't quite got the memo.
One of them was Alexandra Swann, a prominent young Ukip activists who defected from the Tories.
But she wasn't the only one tweeting insults..
The British National Party leader Nick Griffin, sparked outrage earlier this year, as Mandela's health worsened, calling him a "murderous old terrorist".
He stayed true to form on Friday morning.
And on Thursday night, some of the tweets most clearly came from nationalist or sectarian social media users.
Still, at least they knew who he was...