Ben Ayers

Continuing the political theme, I’ve been following with interest No.10’s presence on Twitter, a popular micro blogging platform which you may have heard of ; )

It seems that where Downing Street’s concerned it’s not all ‘push’ as is the case with so many of these early adopted social media channels. Number 10’s communications unit seem to realise that a little bit of ‘pull’ goes a long way too. At least they do at the moment. Helen Pidd of the Guardian even reported talk of uneaten muffins.

Last Friday, spurred on by a shocking Channel 4 news report about the situation in Zimbabwe, I asked @downingstreet a question and received an answer within minutes. I was impressed, but my reply to their reply didn’t get a response. The reason, I suspect, was that I had started to drill down a bit more and any response given back would have indicated some kind of ’stance’ aside from The Official Line, or at least engaged them in a dialogue they were not willing to pursue. A quick seach of questions to @downingstreet using Summize shows that tweets are increasingly looking to delve into highly emotive political subjects, with many asking the kind of direct questions they would love to if they caught Gordon Brown waiting to cross a busy road at the traffic lights.

I wonder, as Twitter begins to grow in popularity, whether Downing Street will shrink back into their shell and accept that their presence on Twitter has to be one thing or the other - a push tool or a place for dialogue. I hope I’m wrong, but I suspect we’ve seen the best of @downingstreet in the Twittersphere.