At Westminster today, the House of Commons is electing a new speaker following the increasingly hilarious decline of Michael Martin. Of course, things are a little different these days and Twitter – as if we wouldn’t have guessed – is playing a part in proceedings.
Public figures, by and large, are pretty terrible at Twitter and offer almost no value to followers. Richard Bacon, for example, obsesses to the point of madness about Twitter but essentially contributes nothing to the community. Proper celebrities, on the other hand, might as well ring my doorbell and tell me what they’re up to in person – I still wouldn’t care.
But some Members of Parliament are making a decent fist of things and seem to have developed a knack of actually saying something worthwhile. Rather than punting out platitudes, a selection of tweeting MPs have today actually given some insight into what’s happening behind the scenes at an important political event. I know from experience that the Houses of Parliament aren’t exactly a thrill a minute, but today’s vote will have repercussions and it’s great to get little morsels of insider info.
In truth, much of what’s being tweeted by our representatives is hardly breaking anything we can’t find out ourselves by switching on BBC Parliament, but the veneer of opinion adds a fascinating element. The easy way to follow comments now that a hashtag seems to have finally been settled upon is by watching #newspeaker.
So what are our esteemed representatives saying, and why does it matter?
Some, like Kerry McCarthy, are giving us commentary with plenty of side. Cracking stuff:
“The first of the Sir Alans is on. The Lib Dem variety. Dull. #newspeaker Now it’s Bercow. “Speaker should be virtually senile”, he was told.”
Jim Knight is following a similar approach:
“Beckett setting out her stall – experience, capable of implementing change, stateswoman, Parliamentarian … Tempting”
I’m proud to say that my local MP, Sadiq Khan, made his vote public and denounced tribal politics during moments of constitutional importance:
“Election of new Speaker today – I’ll be voting for John Bercow. As I said on the Politics Show, this is not a time for tribal politics…”
Even better, two tweeting Toms, Harris and Watson, have provided interesting insight into today’s Parliamentary procedure and linked it into blog posts and pictures, including this display of Tom Harris’ culinary preferences by his Watson-based namesake.
I suppose the fact that these people actually matter is the difference between their mundane tweets and the mundane tweets of Ashton bloody Kutcher. I don’t care what Kutcher is discussing over lunch, but for some reason it’s more interesting when the topic is one which matters. I like knowing that MPs chat about this stuff over lunch. I like that they share their opinions with us and, by and large, engage better with the ensuing discussion than proper slebs.
So take note, celebrities and brands. As far as you’re concerned, Twitter is about furnishing us with background details to which we ordinarily have no access. That is where the value can be added: in the complementary context behind events of genuine interest or importance. Not that you’re having a cup of tea with Danny Wallace.
Policy, politics, Twitter