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Budget 2013: George Osborne joins Twitter | Budget 2013: George Osborne joins Twitter |
(about 1 hour later) | |
Chancellor George Osborne has used Budget day to join Twitter and post his first message on the website. | Chancellor George Osborne has used Budget day to join Twitter and post his first message on the website. |
His first tweet was: "Today I'll present a Budget that tackles the economy's problems head on helping those who want to work hard & get on." | His first tweet was: "Today I'll present a Budget that tackles the economy's problems head on helping those who want to work hard & get on." |
The verified profile is "run by George Osborne and @conservatives team". | The verified profile is "run by George Osborne and @conservatives team". |
It includes a link to a picture of the chancellor in an open necked white shirt working at his desk, with the red budget box in front of him. | It includes a link to a picture of the chancellor in an open necked white shirt working at his desk, with the red budget box in front of him. |
Within an hour of posting his first message he had 13,132 followers. | |
The number of people he follows increased from an initial 9 - including David Cameron and No 10 - to 39, suggesting that he, or someone in the @conservatives team, was hard at work on the microblogging site during the build-up to the Budget, which he will deliver at 12:30 GMT. | The number of people he follows increased from an initial 9 - including David Cameron and No 10 - to 39, suggesting that he, or someone in the @conservatives team, was hard at work on the microblogging site during the build-up to the Budget, which he will deliver at 12:30 GMT. |
Mr Cameron, who re-tweeted Mr Osborne's first message, joined the site in October, and has 261,203 followers. | |
But the chancellor's first target may be to surpass the 77,181 followers amassed by his Labour shadow Ed Balls, a longstanding user of the site. | |
Mr Osborne was trending in the UK following his first message - but although he received a warm welcome from Conservative colleagues, he was bombarded with abuse from some other Twitter users. | |
"I have a feeling new Tweeter @george_osborne is about to discover that Twitter isn't always the best place for helpful, supportive advice," tweeted London School of Economics media chief Charlie Beckett. | |
"If he thought the reception he got at the Olympics was bad...," tweeted former tabloid journalist Rich Peppiatt. | |
US President Barack Obama, who has more than 28 million followers, is the most popular politician on Twitter and made the site a key part of his 2012 election strategy. | |
He broke new ground by breaking the news of his re-election to his Twitter followers before the US television networks. |
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