Wirral Tories - The word on the tweet

For the uninitiated the site allows users to post short updates about their whereabouts and what they've been up to on a news feed.

You can pick who you want to follow and you're away, effortlessly plugged into the issues that matter.

For example, in a unique policy u-turn, Moreton West and Saughall Massey's Cllr Chris Blakeley made a bold decision to distance himself from the traditional Sunday roast at 1pm yesterday, opting for a radical new shift toward Sausage and mash.

I demand an inquiry.

Rather than jam the internet with the reams, acres, vast plains of almost hourly minutiae that the blue side of the peninsula are tweeting I can only ask the usual twitter-related question - why?

On one level of course it humanises people.

The political classes fight a suspicion of civic duty; too many of us, particularly the media, view the those who step up to the democratic plate with a kind of unreasonable lack of trust.

Why? What's in it for you? What are you after?

The knowledge that Cllr Blakeley is at this very moment rightly chuffed with a reasonable interest rate from HSBC rounds off the individual somewhat.

Maybe there's an empathy now that wasn't there previously? More importantly, should I change banks?

Does the knowledge that Leasowe and Moreton East councillor Ian Lewis is a fan of CSI colour our perception of him?

Surely a guy who can appreciate the trajectory and impact of a 9mm hollow-point bullet into a human brain is a man who could be trusted with a schools budget?

Cllr Leah Fraser avoids lifestyle tweets and keeps it political, but it's still great fun.

Witness the recent entry that she was: "Very disappointed with Floella Benjamin".

For a moment I thought there had been a disappointing purchase of a Playschool DVD, but no, it was politics, Floella had decided to back the Lib Dems.

Tory leader Jeff Green is a little more current in his TV choices, and yes Jeff, I think Flash Forward is a bit weird too, but considering it's about the world falling asleep and seeing the future that's a bit like complaining there are too many sick people on Casualty.

Cllr Green generally stays on topic, and no doubt this is a facet of Twitter, witness his considerable tweeting of the pressure to see the recent report in to the closure of Wirral's libraries.

I imagine for his colleagues it's a good way of keeping abreast of the situation, and for nosy journos there's always a good chance of picking up a handy nugget. I know I do.

So, providing they don't now delete me, I'm sticking with my Tory tweets. For a journalist there's little option - I can still pound the streets and plough through the minutes but eyeballing an online journal undoubtedly adds something.

When a crane collapsed in Liverpool recently I was sent out with haste from the newsroom, the photographers had piled on ahead yet before we were there pictures from the inside of the building and from neighbouring offices were up as tweets.

Beaten to the shot by Twitter. Welcome to the internet. And I never got any of Sue Taylor's cake.