UK Government Resignation A Twitter Scoop

Yesterday the UK went to the polls for a series of elections. The moment polling closed, a senior government minister – James Purnell from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) – announced his resignation. The TV news reported this shock announcement with surprise.

Why were they surprised? I wasn’t. I’d previously heard via Twitter that such a resignation was on the cards. Earlier in the day Paul Waugh (@paulwaugh), Deputy Political Editor of the London Evening Standard, had tweeted:

Word in Westminster is that at 10pm tonight, when the polls close, a Cabinet minister will quit. Lets see if they do.

As a result I turned on the the television news to see who had resigned not whether anyone had done so.

Of course this was just a rumour and could have been wrong. Rumours heard on Twitter should be treated the same as rumours heard anywhere else – consider the source. In this case the source was a reliable one.

It shows once again the power of Twitter to spread news and quite how much you can learn if you keep your ear to the ground.