‘You know, if becoming an MP has taught me one thing it’s respect, admiration for political opponents,’ tweeted Louise Mensch, the Tory MP for Corby, last week. ‘My Labour colleagues best people ever.’ It’s ironic that she should have vouchsafed these thoughts in a tweet, because it is Twitter that is fast destroying whatever respect or admiration one might once have felt for politicians, by revealing the sheer bathos of so many of their lives.
There is a place for tweeting in politics, to make short, rapid-response — albeit usually populist — points; William Hague tweeted with some effect during the Libyan crisis, for example. Were he alive today, Winston Churchill would have millions of followers for his pithy thoughts and crushing rejoinders on Twitter. Yet such genuine political activity is a world away from what scores of MPs use Twitter for, which can be broken down into six main categories.
The first is to share details of their travel schedules that would be boring even if one were their spouse. ‘On platform waiting for Euston train,’ the Welsh minister David Jones (Con, Clwyd West) tells us. ‘Cardiff train just pulled in. Amazing number of stops on the route.’ In another tweet he states: ‘iPad battery level down to 4%. Thank heaven I’ve got as far as Rhyl’. ‘‘Nooo there are no taxis!!’ tweets Andrew Percy (Con, Brigg & Goole) ‘Sod it! I’m walking to my village. I’m fat and need the exercise. I may be some time.’ Jamie Reed (Lab, Copeland) thinks people might be interested that he is ‘On a train. With a salad. Without a fork. Is there an app for that?’ Meanwhile Rory Stewart (Con, Penrith) thinks we’ll want to know that he has been ‘Walking up the fellside in black shoes from the Preston train, sheep scattering in darkness, not sure about the squelching under my feet.’
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