On Twitter: what does your MP do?

The logo of social networking website Twitter is seen displayed on the screen of an iPhone smartphone.The logo of social networking website Twitter is seen displayed on the screen of an iPhone smartphone.
The logo of social networking website Twitter is seen displayed on the screen of an iPhone smartphone.
Andrew Mitchell is one of just a few dozen MPs not to have an active Twitter account, analysis of his online activity reveals.

Andrew Mitchell is one of just a few dozen MPs not to have an active Twitter account, analysis of his online activity reveals.

In the last of our series looking at the work of our politicians, we analyse how active the Conservative MP for Sutton Coldfield is on social media.

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But analysis by Motive PR shows that Andrew Mitchell did not have a Twitter account at the time the research was done at the end of March.

This means he is one of just 57 MPs not using the popular social media app.

MPs that do have an account send an average of 3.5 tweets per day, while Labour MP Karl Turner is the most prolific tweeter – sending an average of 26.1 per day for 12 years.

The roughly 600 MPs with accounts had sent almost 8 million tweets between them by the end of March.

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But Motive said they found little correlation between the number of tweets and retweets an MP sent, and the number of followers they have.

Despite his steady output, Mr Turner has fewer than 41,000 followers – below the average of 54,300 for MPs with accounts.

And though he has tweeted fewer than 6,000 times, Boris Johnson's account is followed by 4.1 million people.

The Prime Minister is one of just four MPs with more than a million followers – ahead of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn (2.4 million), current Labour leader Keir Starmer (1.2 million) and ex-PM Theresa May (1 million).

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Of parties with at least 10 members, Labour was reaching the largest section of the electorate – with an average of 63,500 followers each.

Meanwhile, the Scottish National Party's 45 members averaged just 29,300 each.

Despite not taking their seats in the Commons due to their abstentionist policy, Sinn Fein MPs have tweeted almost 80,000 times from their official accounts.

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