The social media gaffes of British politicians
Politicians are almost universally awful when it comes to social media.
Whilst they regularly indulge in intense ‘media training’ to help them appear like normal people on TV and radio, evidently this schooling does not extend to the world of Twitter.
Which is, of course, something we can all be thankful for…
DAVID CAMERON
The Prime Minister showed his Twitter following that despite his massively-expensive education, he still struggles with basic sentence structure.
Putting up an angry Tweet about paedophiles, the PM’s poor grammar seemed to suggest that he was planning on dealing with the issue by banning children.
He said: “It’s unacceptable there’s a loophole allowing paedophile “training manuals”, that’s why I want to protect children by making them illegal.”
Hmm. That is a firm line.
GEORGE OSBORNE
To reinforce his ‘every man’ credentials, Chancellor George Osborne tweeted a picture of himself eating a burger the night before unveiling his 2013 ‘Comprehensive Spending Review’.
But, surprisingly, it turned out that George had not nipped out to his local Chicken Cottage to buy his evening gristle, preferring instead to send out for a ‘Posh Burger’ from upmarket burger chain Byron.
Laughed at by the good folks on Twitter, Osborne attempted to diffuse the situation by quipping that “MacDonald’s did not deliver” — but this just made things worse. Unbeknownst to Osborne, Byron doesn’t deliver either — and that Treasury staff had been sent to pick up the burger.
It must have been a slow news day, as The Sun picked up the “Shamburger” story for the front-page the following day…
ED MILIBAND
All the media training in the world was never going to do much for Ed Miliband.
The beleaguered former Labour Party Leader, never looked very happy or comfortable — whether that was being openly mocked for being a ‘geek’ by Jeremy Paxman, lampooned for eating a sandwich or looking bewildered amidst a thousand screaming ‘Millifans’.
However, he makes it into this list for nothing more than what was obviously just an embarrassing typo.
Upon the death of former Blockbusters gameshow host Bob Holness, a woeful Miliband announced:
“Sad to hear Bob Holness has died. A generation will remember him fondly from Blackbusters.”
ED BALLS
This one’s just confusing.
In 2011, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, Ed Balls, became something of an internet sensation by posting a tweet that contained nothing but his own name.
No one was quite sure why he did this, including, it seems, Ed Balls.
Though, that said, it is a very nice name.
Whether it was an error or stroke of genius, Balls’ “Ed Balls” tweet immediately went viral and rocked up a massive 60,000 retweets in a few hours of posting.
DAVID CAMERON
Yep, it’s Dave again.
The Prime Minister had just got off the phone to the President of the United States after a discussion about the explosive situation between Russia and Ukraine in March 2014.
To help emphasise that he was using a phone and having a serious call, Cameron uploaded a picture of himself — using a phone and looking serious.
Evidently, the PM assumed that his followers would struggle with the concept of a man talking on phone — and was just trying to be helpful. But, regardless of his obvious good intentions, the world decided to take the piss instead.
From Patrick Stewart holding a pack of Wet Ones to his ear and claiming to be “patched in” on the call, to people reposting Cameron’s photo with the strapline “Have you been missold PPI?”, to pictures of Barack Obama, clutching a phone, and asking: “David who..?” it turned into something of a free-for-all — and, one imagines, a pig of a day for Mr. Cameron.
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