Tag Archives: twitter

Opinion – Twitter: powerful campaign tool or waste of effort?

The simple tweet “F*ck” at 10am with the reply “Agreed” last Friday was the only source and all the evidence I required to know that Chris Huhne had been charged.  Two words tied emotion with cognition.  I followed Nick Clegg’s tax cut speech live through the medium of 140 character paraphrase: a sort of Focus-speak reduction I can only imagine would have the speech-writers crying.  The utterance “Borgen – Danish West Wing” was all the persuasion necessary to watch it religiously.

Twitter is free, fast and tragic.  And if it wasn’t powerful in facilitating the fall of

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Lib Dem achievements, communicating peers and election timetables

A trio of resources for your weekend’s delectation:

Posted in News | Also tagged | 1 Comment

Commons votes to allow Twitter but MP demands minister communicates via letter

Yesterday Parliament voted by 206-63 to allow MPs to (continue to) tweet from the Chamber, by rejecting an amendment that would have gutted this proposal, subsequently passed:

That this House notes the Third Report from the Procedure Committee on Use of hand-held electronic devices in the Chamber and committees, HC 889; and resolves that hand-held devices (not laptops) may be used in the Chamber, provided that they are silent, and used in a way that does not impair decorum, that Members making speeches in the Chamber or in committee may refer to electronic devices in place of paper speaking notes and

Posted in News | Also tagged , | 2 Comments

New on Twitter: Deputy Prime Minister’s Office

@DPMoffice Twitter screenshot
Nick Clegg has added another string to his social media bow – this time it’s a new Twitter account.

@DPMoffice will be “Tweeting the official business of Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.” It will be run separately from his existing party Twitter account, @nick_clegg, which will still cover Nick’s Liberal Democrat and Government-related activities.

See also the Deputy Prime Minister’s website, his (Cabinet Office) Flickr gallery and the Deputy Prime Minister’s YouTube channel.

Posted in News, Online politics | Also tagged , | Leave a comment

Opinion: Huhne #tweetfail – Why #cockup is more likely than #conspiracy

Just as most people were packing up for the weekend, the Twittersphere and, eventually, the Mainstream Media were lit up with the story that Chris Huhne had apparently sent out a private text message to his 8,007 Twitter followers, including many of the great and good of “Fleet Street”.

The message said:

From someone else fine but I do not want my fingerprints on the story. C

So what was this “story”? – we are all now wondering.

Think about it.

Chris Huhne had obviously been having a private text exchange with (that ubiquitous Huhne Aunt Sally) “a staff member” (if you believe what Huhne …

Posted in News | Also tagged | 11 Comments

Opinion: #HandsOffTwitter

So, good news everyone – according to reports in the Guardian and others, the Home Office have decided that introducing legislation to allow the police to turn off access to Social Networks would be, ahem, inappropriate, and will instead work in cooperation with the networks going forward. To quote the Home Office after talks today

“The discussions looked at how law enforcement and the networks can build on the existing relationships and co-operation to prevent the networks being used for criminal behaviour”.

Good.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , | 3 Comments

Councillor Warren Swaine apologises for offensive tweet

Reading Councillor Warren Swaine has issued an apology for his actions on 27 January.

I would like to take this opportunity apologise for making derogatory comments during the BBC Question Time programme on the 27th January especially those relating to Chuka Umunna MP. I made a lot of comments that were insulting that night and I regret that.

In respect of one particular tweet, no offense was meant but I absolutely acknowledge that it was recklessly worded and liable to an interpretation that was never intended. For that I would like to offer my sincere apologies to Mr Umunna and

Posted in News | Also tagged , , | 12 Comments

Top 10 tweeting MPs: congratulations to Lib Dem @julianhuppert in at No. 6!

Who are the top 10 Twitterers in the House of Commons? That’s the question the Mail on Sunday answers today, following a survey by Westminster Public Affairs.

The list looks not at number of followers, but at the volume of tweets each MP has sent out. Heading the list is Labour’s Kerry McCarthy with well over 27,000 tweets. Cambridge’s Lib Dem MP Julian Huppert — elected to Parliament just last year — comes in at number six, having sent over 10,000 tweets, and now with over 4,000 followers.

My Co-Editor Mark Pack has compiled a …

Posted in News | Also tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Councillor Warren Swaine reinstated after Twitter race row

Reading Councillor Warren Swaine has had his Liberal Democrat membership restored after being accused of making a racist remark about a Labour MP in February – but will have to complete diversity training if he wishes to be an officer for the Liberal Democrat council group.

The Reading Chronicle reports:

The Lib Dems’ South Central office announced today that Reading borough councillor, Warren Swaine, who represents Katesgrove ward, will have to undergo diversity training if he wants to be a spokesman for the group in the next two years.

The decision comes more than five months after Cllr Swaine was suspended

Posted in News | Also tagged , | 29 Comments

Opinion: Traditional media is not all we should be looking at

It’s not often I agree with a Conservative MP, it’s even less often that I hear them say something that actually strikes me as truly insightful.

During the parliamentary debate on the BSkyB bid there was one such moment. At 6.25pm Dr Phillip Lee stood up and spoke to a now mostly empty chamber. This was a shame, because what he had to say was, in my view, extremely relevant and highly important. (Hansard)

He spoke on the fact that a lot, if not the vast majority, of the news people are getting today comes from not the mainstream media, the …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

LibLink Nick Clegg: Regulating media, empowering citizens

Nick Clegg has a piece in Huffington Post UK today, on media regulation, responsible reporting and replacing the Press Complaints Commission.

He calls new news outlets, such as the newly-launched UK version news and comment website Huffington Post, “a welcome breath of fresh air” at a time when public confidence in the media establishment is being rocked by phone-hacking allegations.

Here’s an excerpt:

The hacking scandal throws up an array of insights. But one in particular stands out to liberals: information is power. It always has been. When elites deploy secretive and opaque practices, it is nearly always to protect their own

Posted in LibLink | Also tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

Opinion: The struggle for democracy persists in Europe, not just the Middle East

In December last year, Alyaksandr Lukashenka was re-elected president of Belarus, with 79.7% of the vote in elections deemed to fall massively short of OSCE standards. Under his leadership, the Belarusian regime systematically violates basic liberties. The past week has seen a worsening of the situation, with the oppressive regime using unjustifiable violence against protesters seeking democracy and freedom.

Despite a ban on social networking sites Facebook and Twitter, in an attempt to try and stifle the protests, the capital Minsk has seen huge anti-Lukashenka demonstrations. The response of the Belarusian Government has been appalling. Hundreds of peaceful protesters have been …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Opinion: A child dies every 20 seconds from lack of clean water

On 19 May, the summit of European-Africa-Caribbean-Pacific parliamentarians (the ACP-EU Assembly) at Budapest called for action to alleviate the global crisis in clean water supply.

One in six people in the world have no access to clean water. 2.5 billion are without clean sanitation and 1.5 million die every year from water contamination.

The report presented to the summit found that there are three main causes of water pollution: industry, agriculture and sewage. In developing countries 70% of industrial waste is dumped untreated into water. The most common source of water pollution, however, is faecal matter.

One of the Millennium Development Goals …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , | Leave a comment

Learning the lessons from last week #6: Talking to yourself is not enough

There was a highly symbolic moment late in the Yes campaign when its final TV broadcast was made. The TV broadcast featured Dan Snow and was a remake of an earlier Dan Snow film, shot to higher production standards (understandable) and also, intentionally or not, featuring a cast that overall looked younger. From being a film that featured people of a range of ages it became one that primarily featured young people. That was the general tenor of the campaign – with an overall cast of talking heads (in online films, TV films and elsewhere) younger than the average voter.

Yet in a relatively low turnout (I say “relatively” because, once again, turnout was much higher than many of the auto-pilot electoral doom-mongers in the media predicted) election it’s older people’s votes who are vital.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , | 3 Comments

Use the new Facebook app while campaigning this weekend #YES2AV #LibDems

When you’re out campaigning this weekend for the elections and Fairer Votes referendum, make sure you let your friends on Facebook and Twitter know what you’ve been up to.

Hundreds of people are already using Lib Dem Voice’s new Facebook app to do just this. It’s a great way of building up a buzz around our campaigning – and the more someone sees their friends have been campaigning, the more likely they are to join in.

You get a list of actions – select one and publish it to your …

Posted in Online politics | Also tagged , | 2 Comments