Last week, Colchester Borough Council voted through a motion that could see local councillors banned from using Twitter during council meetings. After a debate lasting more than two hours, a motion on the use of Twitter in the chamber – that was later voided by legal experts – was lost by 22 votes to 29. But aise from the legal machinations, one thing was clear, the use of social media by politicians is a genie that is now well and truely out of the bottle.
In Colchester, we’ve seen an increase in our local politicians using social media. Whether it has been to provide residents with information on the winter weather, promote local campaigns on roads or schools or to advertise their local ward surgeries, six out of our eight councillors have now taken to Twitter to engage their local communities.
The whole issue of the use of Twitter by politicians has been a personal passion of mine since I joined this particular social media revolution back in 2008. Through the experience I had from my own campaign in the 2010 general election as the Labour PPC for Colchester, I found I could reach a lot more voters – especially younger voters – by using social media, than I did on the doorstep.
But this isn’t an either/or argument. For every person on Twitter today, I’ll bet they’ll be two who are not. It is important that councillors who tweet are also councillors who work hard, knocking on doors, holding the coffee mornings and running the street surgeries. And these rules apply to all politicians – ministers, MPs, councillors and even ordinary activists like me. The use of social media should not be seen as a substitute for the real work that we need to do on the ground. After all, can you really get your message or manifesto across in just 140 characters?
Councillors who spoke in favour of tweeting at last week’s council debate, including many in our own Labour group, saw it as another tool for public engagement – reaching out to parts of the community that they represent. It is a widely acknowledged fact that Twitter helps to engage different parts of the community – after all Colchester borough council even has its own Twitter account (ban aside, it continues to tweet as @yourcolchester)
However, one of the main objections was that councillors would not be able to concentrate at meetings. Saying that councillors were unable to multitask, or tweeting and listening at the same time was described by the Labour group deputy leader Tina Bourne (tweeting @Tina_Bourne) as ludicrous. She said many councillors were already texting, writing speeches or even having a conversation with colleagues during meetings and that tweeting would be not different to the other forms of communication already being used in the council chamber.
I was really disappointed at the outcome of the vote in Colchester. Banning councillors from tweeting during debates is nonsensical. Social media is a reality, and it’s here to stay. Councillors must embrace it and encourage it, as they should all forms of public engagement.
Politicians who simply use Twitter to get tier message across will lose out, almost as equally as those who fail to engage at all.
As I campaign in Colchester ahead of May’s local elections, I’ll be pounding those streets, knocking on those doors, but I’ll be tweeting about it as I go (and by the way, you can find me @jordannewell). Who knows, we may even make a You Tube video of our campaign this year too.
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Jordan Newell is a Progress member and chair of Colchester Labour party. He tweets @jordannewell
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