What does David Cameron tweet?

I have been in Rome this last couple of weeks, trying to make headway with my book in the peace of the American Academy. And I've done just two gigs: a lecture on Laughter at the American University next door, and a discussion on women, books, blogs and social media at the Academy (you can see a bit about it here if you go down to 21 October). My pipedream has been never to leave the Janiculan or to be more than 500 metres from the library for a fortnight -- which I have nearly, but not quite, managed.

Anyway, the discussion was fun, and we fell at one point to talk about the deocratising potential of online communication. As some of you will know, I have serious doubts about how much a force for democracy media like Twitter are. It is often hyped as the place where the ordinary person can talk to those in power, but that only works if those in power are listening. Democracy is about being heard, not just about being allowed to sound off -- and it would take a very naive soul to imagine that David Cameron read anything tweeted to him. Indeed it would take a very naive soul to imagine that he actually wrote most of them. (No criticism intended there: I would hope he had better things to do.)

Anyway, I decided afterwards that it might be a good idea to take a careful look at a few "leaders'" tweets and twitter accounts. All my cynicism, I should say, has been amply confirmed.

I started with the Pope. He has an impressive 4.63 million followers (especially impressive since he has only been tweeting since Feb 2012) -- but there is not much sign of ineraction with his flock. Most of his tweets are pithy moral homilies (like "To change the world we must be good to those who cannot repay us") and he is only following eight people. And the lucky eight turn out to be his own twitter accounts in other languages!

David Cameron appears to have two twitter accounts. One (accompanied by his face and poppy) is as "UK Primeminister" (2.83 million followers since March 2008). This is rather similar in style to the pope's, though slightly more in the vein of handy hints. The last ran helpfully: The clocks go back tonight. Remember to #TickTockTest your smoke alarms! #FireKills http://thndr.it/ZxF86D

Nice to know he cares.

More to the point though, this account does tell you Number 10's social media policy. The bottom line is that if you want to get in touch with the primeminister, you should send him a letter. You can try an email if you want, but they get so many they cant guarantee a reply. As for tweets, they are open about the account being managed by the PM's "social media team". They "review" (note -- they carefully dont say "read") the @tweets once a day, but dont usually reply. Oh, and "We can’t engage on issues of party politics", which must cut out quite a lot.

Cameron's "personal' account (slightly different face plus poppy, as at the top of this post) has 828,000 followers, while he follows 369 accounts, mostly journalists, politicians and good causes, plus Chipping Norton lido. I may be quite wrong, but I my guess is that he doesnt actually tweet much here himself, but this is reserved for more personal messages. Like the last: "I'm angry at the sudden presentation of a €2bn bill to the UK by the EU. It's an appalling way to behave and I won't be paying it on Dec 1st". There's also a good bit of "reaching out" (especially to "faith communities): "Happy #Diwali and happy New Year to British Hindus, British Jains - and everyone around the world - celebrating the festival of lights." But not much sign of any interaction going on.

In case you're wondering Ed Miliband is much the same: a rather more modest 351,000 followers since July 2009, and he's following 1457 (same basic selection, but he appears to follow every member of the parliamenary Labout Party). And the same dreary stuff:

"3 million British jobs and thousands of British businesses rely on the EU. I won't be the Prime Minister that puts that at risk"

"I'll reform our immigration system. With Labour you'll get clear, credible, concrete change, not false promises or a risk to jobs & business"

And he didnt forget Diwali either:

"Happy Diwali to everyone celebrating today! An important festival and an opportunity to spend valuable time with loved ones #Diwali2014"

As I said, I'm not blaming any of them on this. I'm not sure I want government by Twitter. But if we're kidding ourselves that these platitudes are democratising, we should think again.