Is Dominic Cummings right that politicians are too focused on Twitter?

After the PM’s former chief adviser lamented the apparent priorities for modern politicians, John Rentoul explores the perks and pitfalls of Twitter

Dominic Cummings: More of a blogger than a tweeter, perhaps (AFP via Getty)

In his first public comment since the announcement of his departure from government, Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s former chief adviser, has written for The Spectator about the danger to the world of nuclear annihilation. He berates us all for largely ignoring “issues of existential importance”, while “our political systems incentivise politicians to focus more on Twitter and gossip-column stories about their dogs”.

He has a point, both about Twitter and about dogs, but the truth is that most people can’t stand too much reality, and we don’t want to spend all our time talking about nuclear, chemical and biological weapons proliferation because we have a virus pandemic taking up most of our worrying time.  

Of course he did not mean just Twitter and dogs: they are examples of the short-termism and superficiality of politics; but he might as well rail about the weather. Politicians will use Twitter if they think it will help them win elections; and the prime minister will put his dog on a Christmas card with a bit of tinsel round its neck if he thinks it will help him come across as likeable.  

The point about Twitter is that it is a means of communication. It can be highly effective, but good politicians know its dangers and limitations. David Cameron was one of the first to understand the dangers, saying too many tweets make you look foolish, or words to that effect. But others learned about the reverse alchemy of foolishness as a form of attention seeking.  

Ed Balls, for example, humanised his aggressive image as shadow chancellor by mistakenly tweeting his own name in 2011 – he thought he was searching for an article about himself – which has been celebrated in Twitter lore ever since.  

Donald Trump built his campaign for the US presidency on Twitter, mostly doing his own tweeting, complete with spelling, grammar and logic mistakes. However much liberal Twitter disapproved of him, it was undeniably effective in speaking directly to a large base of committed supporters. 

No wonder some politicians were keen to get in on the act. Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, was accused of following and then unfollowing hundreds of people on Twitter in the hope that they would follow him back, thus boosting his profile. 

But it continued to be a hazard for the unwary. This year, it was a tweet that got Rebecca Long-Bailey sacked from the shadow cabinet. She wrote, “Maxine Peake is an absolute diamond,” with a link to an interview in The Independent in which the actor appeared to endorse an antisemitic conspiracy theory. On the other hand, it could be argued that it was not the tweet itself that prompted Keir Starmer to sack her, but her refusal to delete it. 

It may be that Twitter makes it easier for politicians to trip up, but they were always capable of doing that before the social media age. And any politician who now tries to cut themselves off from Twitter is putting themselves at a disadvantage: it is the main way that news and analysis spreads in the networks of politicians and journalists. 

Cummings may be right that politicians are too short-termist, and that they fail to give enough attention to some serious problems, but that is not because most of them use Twitter carefully as a way of communicating. Unless they are on Twitter all the time, of course, in which case it is presumably a terrible distraction. Or so someone tweeted the other day.