Tweet revenge

First rule of Twitter: if you don’t use it, you can’t understand it. Nor should you try to: it is a kind of digital crack cocaine for a tiny minority addicted to gossip. In the old days, political gossip had to be exchanged in bars, corridors and (famously) urinals of the Commons. Twitter delivers these fixes straight to the addicts’ mobile telephones. The good news is that anyone can open a Twitter account under an assumed name, and have a little fun with our elected representatives — if you know, or can guess, how their minds work. Last year, I had a go, and became, for a while, a Westminster phenomenon.

By then, certain political types were taking advantage of Twitter’s immediacy, reach and power. There was much fun to be had at a time when the government was entering a phase of gimmicky announcements, lazy U-turns, vacillation and briefing against each other. Twitter itself was loftily dismissed by Mr Cameron during the election (‘too many tweets make a twat,’ he said) but I understand he will make (yes) a U-turn on this at party conference and announce he has signed up. You only have 140 characters for each message, but this is enough to fan flames, steal a march and cause turmoil, and it was all ripe to be sent up on Twitter.

I chose an identity that would provoke attention and give me a chance of attracting influential followers. The synthetic try-hard mystique of Steve Hilton, the Prime Minister’s best friend and chief strategist, was the ideal meat for my proposed barbecue. Hilton was prone to cruising round No. 10 in shorts and bare feet, as a rather puerile display of rank. He sat at his desk wearing T-shirts saying ‘pillage before plunder’. His abject lack of manners and propensity for hissy fits were no secret.