The Horsell's Mouth Politics, pedantry and personal interests

There is one Labour MP whose media profile is being inflated by a concerted PR effort and that is Kerry McCarthy, the highly prolific Twitterer who in between tweets is also MP for Bristol East.

Having managed 4,555 updates in 36 weeks – that’s 126 a week, or an average of 18 each day – @KerryMP has now been “officially” appointed as Labour’s Twitter Tsar by Douglas Alexander, who was not only a very poor Secretary of State for Transport but will now look after Gordon Brown‘s general election campaign.

The very fact that anyone would be foolish enough to take on such a job is reason enough in my mind to doubt their judgement and to appoint a Twitter Tsar seems to institutionalise Twitter in a way that is the very opposite of its original intended purpose. That MPs have to be trained on how to use it is damning of the calibre of people that sit in parliament – most 14-year olds seem to pick it up in a few days.

So the thrusting of @KerryMP, willingly no doubt, into the limelight (she’s also in PR Week today as well) may seem like a good plan but I doubt that Twitter is going to win many votes at the next general election. Most people on Twitter are there, by their very nature, because like me they’ve already made up their mind and have something to say.

And Twitter is the perfect ether into which to spray their rants, prejudices and humour in the hope that some like mind will be found to appreciate it.

PS: @KerryMP ought not to spend too much time Twittering because her Bristol East seat is vulnerable. In 2005, neighbouring Bristol North turned yellow, overturning a Labour majority of 4,500 to give a majority of 5,000 to Stephen Williams. @KerryMP (majority 8,500) is facing ex-West Byfleet Tory councillor-turned Lib Dem PPC Mike Popham in the seat in 2010, which is packed full of students (ironically as a result of Labour’s accessibility programme). Will she hang on? Electoral Calculus predicts a Conservative gain of all things!