21st Century MPs?
In the past MPs have had a love-hate relationship with twitter. Are they finally coming around to it?
“Too many twits might make a twat”
Back in 2009, David Cameron, when asked about twitter, famously said “too many twits might make a twat”.
Despite apologising for his bad language, the comment resonated with a lot of people who saw the new communication tool as nothing more than a forum for posting about what you had for breakfast, or how bad your commute was.
In 2009 there were only 118 MPs on twitter. Now there are 409.
A lot has changed in five years.
A few months after his infamous radio interview, Cameron signed up to twitter himself. Despite only tweeting 800 times — just over half a tweet a day over the last 4 years — he has amassed over six-hundred thousand followers to become one of the world’s most followed politicians on twitter.
“Ed Balls”
Another seminal moment in the development of MPs on Twitter was what has since become known in twitter circles as “Ed Balls Day” — the day Ed Balls tweeted his own name.
No one is quite sure why he did it — one theory is that he was trying to search for his name on twitter and typed into the wrong box — but it has since taken on a life of its own.
The original tweet from 2011 has been retweeted tens of thousands of times, and every year since on the anniversary in April there are numerous copycat tweets.
Whether embarrassing accident or savvy new media marketing strategy, Ed Ball’s name is now one of the most visible on twitter.
This tweet is also a good reminder for politicians that things you post on twitter can keep coming back — perhaps to haunt you. Most responses to the Ed Balls tweet have been in the spirit of good natured chiding, but politicians can also tweet things that they later come to regret.
“Scumbag football hooligans”
One example of this came last month when Harlow MP, Robert Halfon — who just happens to be one of the 19 most prolific tweeters — posted a tweet which contained the phrase “scumbag football hooligans”, apparently referring to Sunderland supporters who were in London for a match at Wembley. He was complaining that they had turned central London into a “cesspit”.
Embarrassingly for Mr Halfon the police reports didn’t corroborate his tweet. According to the Salut Sunderland blog, the police on duty that evening described the Sunderland supporters as “good natured”. Four arrests were made in connection with the match, but only one in central London. Mr Halfon subsequently apologised saying he felt “regret” after posting the tweet.
Political activity
Now that the general public can immediately see the personal opinions, throwaway comments, and mistakes of politicians it changes the way political information is mediated.
MPs rarely, if ever, stand up in the Commons and shout personal information, but many seem to forget that posting on twitter is much the same.
With BBC Parliament having a small average audience of a few thousand it is now increasingly becoming the case that for all but the most important parliamentary debates the general public will see more of an MPs activity on twitter than they will in the Commons.
A number of MPs have started using twitter as part of their daily communication routine. Some — notably Chris Bryant — have even started tweeting during parliamentary debates.
According to research by Mark Margaretten, Researcher at the University of Bedfordshire, there are 4 MPs who have tweeted more than 20,000 times, and 15 other MPs have tweeted between 10,000 and 20,000 times in the period from December 2010 to March 2014.
Tweeting 20,000 times over that period would mean an average of at least 500 tweets a month.
Mark says that these particular MPs all tweet more than 9 times a day — some tweeting as much as 27 times a day — telling him that “they’ve integrated twitter in their normal everyday life.”
Public conversations
With many methods of communication open to MPs, Mark sees twitter as a “nice addition to their constituent relationship management routine,” due to the public nature of the conversation that is being had.
“When I have a conversation with you on twitter, everyone else hears it. They witness our conversation, and participate in that way.”
According to figures from Tweetminster, the 409 MPs on twitter account for approximately 63% of the House of Commons. The party with the most MPs on twitter is Labour with 174 (68%), and the party with the highest proportion of its MPs on twitter is the Liberal Democrats with 44 (79%).
The Conservatives aren’t too far behind Labour in terms of the number of MPs on twitter — 171 — but due to having greater representation in the Commons fall short in proportion terms, with only 56% of their MPs on twitter.
Still, it says something that more than half of the MPs in a Conservative Party which is seen as traditional and often behind the times have signed up to use this new media communication tool.
With these figures in mind it perhaps isn’t surprising that 3 of the 4 most prolific tweeters come from the Labour Party, but our full list of 19 tweeting MPs is far more representative. 8 of the MPs are Labour (42%), 7 are Conservative (37%), 3 are Liberal Democrats (16%), and 1, George Galloway, represents the Respect Party (5%).
According to Mark’s research the most prolific MP on twitter, the Liberal Democrat Tim Farron, has managed 32,478 tweets in the 40 month study period. This means an average of over 800 tweets a month.
The other three MPs who have tweeted over 20,000 times, Labour MPs Stella Creasy, Tom Watson and Jamie Reed have all tweeted between 23,000 and 26,000 times in the study period.
It seems it isn’t just the most progressive and youthful MPs that are turning to twitter to communicate with their constituents. The new media landscape has made it easier than ever, technophile or technophobe, to use the internet to communicate, and politicians are coming to realise that.
A full list of the 19 most active MPs on twitter:
Tim Farron (LD)
Stella Creasy (Labour)
Tom Watson (Labour)
Jamie Reed (Labour)
Kerry McCarthy (Labour)
Chris Bryant (Labour)
Julian Huppert (LD)
Nick de Bois (Conservative)
Therese Coffey (Conservative)
Andrew Percy (Conservative)
Robert Halfon (Conservative)
Andrew Gwynne (Labour)
Greg Mulholland (LD)
David Jones (Conservative)
Michael Fabricant (Conservative)
Karl Turner (Labour)
Michael Dugher (Labour)
George Galloway (Respect)
Dan Byles (Conservative)
Photo credits: flickr/Harry (Howard) Potts, flickr/UK Parliament, flickr/Acid Pix, flickr/Liberal Democrats, flickr/Josh Hallett
