I blogged back during the London Mayoral elections about Lib Dem candidate Brian Paddick using Twitter as a tool for a virtual Q&A session with the electorate.
Well it seems that his dalliance with the tool has ended pretty soon after the election happened.
Personally I think it is slightly worse that he is signing off with a "I’m winding down now" message which kind of implies that he has been a regular user of Twitter rather than what was essentially a engagement-initiative-as-PR-stunt.
Maybe that is a bit of an extreme take on it, but wouldn;t it be more authentic to just say: "I tried this during the election to engage with voters and now the election is over I’m signing out."?
Hat tip: Dominic Campbell
Technorati tags: Twitter, Brian Paddick, Politics, Mayoral Elections
Can’t believe I’m springing to the defence of a Lib Dem, but here goes!
Paddick isn’t an elected politician and if his rationale was to use Twitter to engage with people as a politician then by losing he no longer has a reason for continuing.
It’s a similar (although not identical) situation to the one we had with Alan Johnson. The use of Twitter was specifically for political engagement. It was to do with being a candidate in the deputy leadership elections and had he won he would have continued to Twitter, but in a political capacity as Deputy Leader, not as a cabinet minister, which has a whole other set of issues to consider.
That is one of the major issues of social media in politics/government. The ‘rules’ say the dividing line is clear, the reality is totally different and make it very hard for politicians to engage. For it to work really well there should be no divide (because most voters don’t understand it), but it must be divided in order to have any resource/support behind it.
Hi Stuart. I suppose my issue isn;t with Paddick stopping using it, but rather with the idea that he wa committed to it as a tool and now he’s ‘winding down’. Just be honest for God’s sake and admit you used it for the campaign and now you’re not Mayor you’re stopping. Honesty (and openness) is the best policy – as all politicians know… no, wait 😉
It’s probably more about lack of thinking, than lack of honesty (or openess). When I saw Paddick’s Twitter I thought the reason he was winding down was obvious and it was a good idea to direct people elsewhere. But’s that because I’m a politico and it was obvious to me. It wasn’t until much later and I read your post that I thought more about it and realised that lots of people might think otherwise.