Winston Peters' Twitter fail draws comparisons to UK 'Balls up'

New Zealand First Party leader Winston Peters was caught searching for himself when he accidentally put it in a tweet. Photo / Dean Purcell

New Zealand First politician Winston Peters has made a Twitter gaffe this morning.

He tweeted "Tweets on Winston Peters NZ politician", a phrase he presumably meant to type into the search bar.

The 72-year-old frequently tweets many times a day detailing his political engagements and reaction to the National Party.

If you were to search "Tweets on Winston Peters NZ politician" his mistake is the first one that appears.

Peters said the tweet was not written by him.

"Of course not. The culprit has been found."

His reply to further questions was "none of your business".

Tweets on Winston Peters NZ politician

— Winston Peters (@winstonpeters) May 26, 2017

The great thing is if you do twitter search 'Tweets on Winston Peters NZ politician' this is now literally all that comes up https://t.co/x9vsNGPKUQ

— chris (@Lukeurmyson) May 26, 2017

A retired British Labour Party politician made the same "balls up" in 2011. An aide suggested to Ed Balls to search for a Twitter article that mentioned him.

Balls typed in his name but accidentally hit send when a phone call came in.

The original tweet has since been retweeted over 94,000 times and received over 60,000 likes.

Ed Balls

— Ed Balls (@edballs) April 28, 2011

April 29 has now been crowned Ed Balls day. Balls retweets the original tweet at 4.20pm, the time it was first sent. Many Twitter users follow suit and several companies have joined in by tweeting their own name.

Twitter

— Twitter UK (@TwitterUK) April 28, 2015

storyful

— Storyful (@Storyful) April 28, 2015

#EdBallsDay has become so commercialised. Shame really. pic.twitter.com/TT6qR7uzcU

— Carousel Lights (@Carousel_Lights) April 28, 2015