A much shorter note on tonight’s leaders’ debate – plus a rant! First how the politicians fared. I thought Cameron and Brown both improved from last week, and Clegg looked weaker under a bit more scrutiny. Overall, a lot closer.
I’m eager to find out how polls react over the next week – will the “Clegg Effect” continue? I’d be surprised if the Lib Dems continued to poll quite so high, but we’ll see.
Now for the rant, and it’s about Twitter. Is it making us more closed-minded? I haven’t seen one tweet – not one – which show any evidence of people changing their mind on the #leadersdebate stream. It was hard enough to find any tweets that treated the debate objectively!
Not only that, but the vitriol and abuse against the party leaders was disgusting – and lazy. It appears most people can’t even be bothered to think up their own criticism, but instead simply re-tweet banal and trivial comments to support their own opinions.
It’s especially depressing as the people I follow on Twitter are for the most part delightfully rational and objective. So why when we get onto politics do the knives come out and suddenly it’s bitter partisanship all round?
Nobody’s going to change party allegiance overnight, still less announce it on Twitter! But like the worst of football supporters, it seems that to acknowledge strength in your opposition, or weaknesses in “your team”, is tantamount to treason.
Twitter makes it all too easy to surround yourself with those who echo and reflect your own views, and too easy to dismiss those who disagree. Maybe 140 characters or less are not sufficient, or adequate, for grown-up political discussion.
I’ve found Twitter an enlightening experience in general, and even a force for good. But when it comes to politics, it seems to amplify the worst of sound-bite politics, spin, and negativity, rather than helping people come together and resolve their differences.
I’d be really interested in any of your thoughts about the debates and the live Tweeting that goes on! Do get involved in the comments, maybe I’m just being too pessimistic…
