Richard Baum

This Twitter lark is hard. I have so far managed two tweets, but really there is so little in my life that I think anyone else would find interesting that I don’t understand how people can keep the whole thing going.

Maybe if I was a Hollywood A-lister and could pepper my tweets with juicy celebrity tit-bits like “just popped round to see Kirk Douglas” then people might be interested. As it is, I am barely a Prestwich F-Lister, and since starting out on Twitter two days ago the highlight of my life has been a pint of Diet Coke after work last night. I have decided that the world doesn’t need to hear about that, and so I have remained tweet-free.

So I’ll see how it goes, but if the next few days are anything like the last few, I may be abandoning my foray into micro-blogging before it’s really begun.

Such indecision marks me out less as a Liberal Democrat and more of a Conservative. The Tories are still in a bit of a murky haze about what to do to get us out of the deficit. Mr Cameron’s flip-flopping on the economy would make a dance champion’s head spin. As Vince Cable (our Shadow Chancellor) has said:

“The Liberal Democrats are the only party that has had a consistent approach.” There is an ongoing row between Labour and the Conservatives over how confused the other is on the economy and public spending, all of which would make for far more entertaining Twitter fodder than my mundane existence. Unfortunately for the other parties though, their argument isn’t being played out in front of my four “followers” but instead on the front pages of national newspapers. Vince continued by saying:

“Labour and the Tories are accusing each other of being confused and contradictory on the economy, and they’re both right.

“The fact that they insist on this political bun fight shows they have failed to understand that the British public and the markets want a clear picture of what the next Government will do.

“The Liberal Democrats are the only party that has had a consistent approach.

“We’ve been very open about the scale of cuts required and setting out where our priorities would be, while recognising that the timing must be decided by the strength of the economy. That is why we have set out five tests for when and how we start to cut.”

So there you have it. David Cameron seemed very clear on the merits of Twitter when he said he didn’t use it because “too many twits might make a twat.” However, he doesn’t know what to cut or when to cut it, and he’s certianly not telling us. I’m less clear on the Twitter question, but a lot clearer on the economy, and hopefully that’s going to be more important when it comes to the ballot box.

Rick