Friday is the day when MPs are supposed to reconnect with the rest of the world beyond Westminster. They go back to their constituencies to attend all kinds of local events, run surgeries and meet the people who might be persuaded to vote for them in the next election. All as it should be.
But it isn’t enough anymore that they do these things - they need to be seen to be doing them. This is where Twitter, and to a lesser extent, Facebook, come in.
Lots of MPs have Twitter now, and many of them use it to great effect. Louise Mensch and Tom Watson’s feeds produced riveting coverage of the culture, media and sport select committee inquiry into phone hacking last autumn, for instance. Stella Creasy used hers very skilfully to promote her campaign against loan sharking. Jamie Reed always has something amusing to add to the day’s politics, as well as promoting his work on the shadow health team. Jesse Norman and Matthew Hancock both use theirs as a means of rapid rebuttal on the economy, and it's well worth keeping up with them.
Unfortunately, on Fridays, it all goes horribly wrong. For those of us who, for obvious reasons, follow a lot of MPs on Twitter, every Friday finds your feed deluged with tweets so dull and inane you find yourself clicking through to check you aren’t following a parody account by mistake.
Using Tweetminster’s excellent aggregator, I’ve just picked some random examples for you that illustrate all the different horrors that MPs’ Friday tweets can bring.
First, an example of the ‘humble brag’, from Dan Byles:
Some are a little more straightforwardly enthusaistic, if a little enigmatic. See this from Rob Wilson:
Not everyone sees Friday as a purely constituency-focused day. Vernon Coaker here provides a great example of how you can mention a local meeting you’ve had while still sticking it to the government:
Or do the opposite, as Duncan Hames does here - use your constituency visit as an opportunity to big up a government policy:
Sometimes, though, you do have to feel sorry for an MP. Glyn Davies’ day sounds horrific - kidney failure, rape and power lines:
Twitter sometimes gets a bad press from the uninitiated. “Isn’t it just people tweeting about when they like to go to the loo?” they ask, amazed that a friend they previously considered to be relative sane indulges in this stuff.
Anyone who uses it, though, knows that Twitter is an incredibly powerful tool. Especially if you’re a politician. The problem with MPs’ Friday tweets is twofold - they’re extremely dull, and their intended audience (constituents, presumably) don’t make up the majority of their followers. Local newsletters, the doorstep, surgeries - this is where they should be bragging about how devoted they are to the area. Rather than broadcasting it to the world at large, how about they just stick to paying attention to whatever event they are at?
PS A while ago, TP blogger Sadie Smith inaugurated the wonderful hashtag #tweetlikeanMP. Join her in her campaign to shame MPs into self-awareness - she's @smithsky1979
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