The SNP MP for Perth and North Perthshire, Pete Wishart, has been named the UK’s ‘Parliamentary Tweeter of the Year’ at the 2015 Political Twitter Awards. Wishart fought off Respect MP George Galloway in second and Green MP Caroline Lucas in third after votes from more than 2,000 people were analysed.
Responding to his victory Pete Wishart, who has over 13,000 followers on the social networking site, said: “I am delighted to have won this fantastic award and I want to thank everybody that voted for me as Parliamentary tweeter of the year.
“Social media is increasingly important to get our messages across and is increasingly the place where we all meet to discuss the issues and exchange views. Twitter allows us to have conversations with our constituents, promote the issues that are important to us and it is also just great fun. Most MPs are now on twitter and it will only continue to grow in importance and influence as the General Election approaches.”
The Political Twitter Awards, hosted by Westminster Public Affairs, celebrates the great and the good and the gaffes and guffaws of the UK’s MPs on social media site Twitter.
The Awards featured ten categories overall. Other notable winners included Stella Creasy MP who won ‘Best Constituency Tweeter’, Andrew Percy MP who was recognised for ‘Funniest Tweet’ and Labour leader Ed Miliband MP who scooped the less prestigious ‘Selfie of the Year’ award for his shot with, amongst others, Joey Essex and Emma Thompson (see here). A full list of winners can be found on the Westminster Public Affairs website.
Olly Kendall, Managing Director of Westminster Public Affairs who organised this year’s awards and one of this year’s judges, said: “Huge congratulations to Pete for his victory. He won the popular vote by a fair margin over his closest competitor.
“It is arguably telling that the top three in the Parliamentary Tweeter of the Year category voted for by the public are not from Westminster’s three biggest parties. It suggests that Twitter can be an effective tool for MPs from the other parties, giving them a platform that the traditional media does not always provide them with.”
At the end of last year Westminster Public Affairs published its ‘Parliamentary Twitter Analysis 2014’ in which it found that the use of Twitter by MPs was on the rise, with 71% of MPs now using the site and a select few sending more than 5,000 tweets each year.