‘The trouble with Tories and Twitter…’
2:26 pm - January 5th 2010
Tweet | Share on Tumblr |
Labour MP Kerry McCarthy has had an unobtrusive career since she entered parliament in 2005, voting along party lines with relentless loyalty. Her parliamentary expenses are a bit more interesting, if you’re keen on interior design – McCarthy furnished her London home from Habitat – but even then, she’s a fairly middling figure. TheyWorkForYou gives her claims for 2007/2008 a ranking of 215th out of 645 MPs. That leaves plenty of more spectacular receipt-flashers ahead of her.
If you’ve heard of McCarthy, it’s probably in her capacity as Labour’s new media campaign spokesperson, or (even more likely) as “Twitter tsar” – encouraging her colleagues to embrace the communicative powers of technology, and maintaining impressively open channels through her own blog and Twitter account. Well, open apart from a few exceptions.
In mid-December last year, she blocked blogger Iain Dale after a minor tweet-spat. And, shortly after, McCarthy was elevated from the Labour mass to become a key target for online Tory campaigners, with Dale promoting a #kerryout campaign set up by fellow right-wing blogger Tory Bear and citing “her behaviour on Twitter” as a compelling reason to push her out. Because social media etiquette is always hovering just above education, immigration and employment in a voter’s mind.
…read Sarah Ditum’s full article here
Tweet | Share on Tumblr |
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Reader comments
I’ve just written my name in the snow. I was stuck in traffic in my mates car but I was bursting so he let me out. There’s more content behind that hedge than in the post above, and I suspect it will play a bigger role in the next election than Twitter ever could.
So, some dullo who’s career has so far been to rubber stamp Labour policies (reason enough to hate her) and who is only relatively uncorrupt by current Parliamentary standards banned Ian Dale and he’s got a strop-on with her?
‘Because social media etiquette is always hovering just above education, immigration and employment in a voter’s mind.’
Quite.
If Kerry chooses to live by Twitter, she can hardly complain if she dies (politically) by Twitter, can she?
Reactions: Twitter, blogs
-
Liberal Conspiracy
:: 'The trouble with Tories and Twitter…' http://bit.ly/6Xek3i
-
2010: The Politics of (In)difference and Similarity « Another Kind Of Mind
[…] fully expect last month’s rather pathetic attempt by the Tory blogosphere to unseat the Labour MP Kerry McCarthy to be just the start of a protracted inter-party cat fight that will only escalate as the election […]
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.