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Monday 19 January 2015

You twit(ter)

It's becoming evident that the Red Tories have identified Twitter as one of the more successful vehicles for the Yes campaign during indyref and have decided to jump on the bandwagon (becoming something of a speciality of theirs these days is bandwagon-jumping it seems).

On Saturday we had the #myfuturescotland hashtag, which was, of course, promptly subverted by supporters of independence.  This morning we have the #askjimmurphy hashtag, and guess what's happened to that one too?

So far Mr Murphy and his team appear to be unable to come up with any new or original ideas.  1,000 more nurses than the SNP?  Trying to steal the campaign on imprisoning mothers from Women for Independence and the Howard League?  Aping the #yesbecause Twitter campaign? 

Clearly they were impressed by the Yes side during indyref, judging by their willingness to use the same strategies, although you'll never hear them admit it.  The trouble is that they don't seem to have anything more than a superficial understanding of how it worked, hence the Twitter campaign has backfired.  Their other problem is that indyref awakened interest in politics for many people, so the attempts to hi-jack ideas from other parties is pretty transparent.  I'm not saying they won't work on some people, but I doubt they will be as successful as the Murphyites believe.

So far the Red Tories have impressed only with their lack of originality and superficial understanding.  They're going to have to up their game considerably if they expect to honour Mr Murphy's promise to retain every single seat they currently occupy in Scotland.

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