With only a few days of voting left to decide this year’s Parliamentary Tweeter of the Year award-organisers say that - much like their meteoric rise in national polls - it’s MPs from the smaller parties who are defying expectations.
In the hotly contested ‘Parliamentary Tweeter of the Year’ category, more than 2,000 people have already cast their vote to decide who they think deserves to win the coveted title at this year’s inaugural awards. You can still cast your vote, and see a full list of categories and winners at www.politicaltwitterawards.com. Polls close at midday on Monday 9th March.
The Political Twitter Awards 2015, set up by UK lobbying firm Westminster Public Affairs celebrates the best (and worst) of the UK’s MPs on social media site Twitter.
Olly Kendall, Managing Director of Westminster Public Affairs who organised this year’s awards and one of this year’s judges, said: “It’s good to see so many votes coming in for the smaller parties, an indication that Twitter can be a powerful tool for those wishing to challenge the status quo. It’s no coincidence that many of the most active politicians on social media are outside of the three ‘main’ parties, as Twitter allows smaller parties to reach an audience far larger than would previously been possible.
"Of course there’s still time to vote so the race is far from over but MPs from the three-main parties need to start canvassing their Twitter supporters if they’re to have a chance to winning.”
At the end of last year Westminster Public Affairs published its ‘Parliamentary Twitter Analysis 2014’ in which it found that the use of Twitter by MPs was on the rise, with 71% of MPs now using the site and a select few sending more than 5,000 tweets each year.
The judging panel for this years awards were:
- Michael Crick, Political Correspondent, Channel 4 News
- David Singleton, Editor of Public Affairs News
- Nick Tyrone, Associate Director of CentreForum
- Olly Kendall, Managing Director of Westminster Public Affairs