Why David Cameron Should Quit Twitter

There is much to like about Twitter. By following a good range of people I get a constant stream of news, humorous observations, thought-provoking pictures and links to great pieces of writing I might otherwise miss. Last night – between talking to my family and reading a book – on Twitter I marvelled at an image of soldiers from a Scottish regiment off to the Crimea in the 1850s, retweeted by a leading ITV news journalist. Later on I had an outlet for my personal view – no doubt hopelessly old-fashioned in London medialand- that the closure of one of the BBC's many, many outlets, the youth channel BBC Three, is really in the grand scheme of things not very important and unworthy of significant news coverage. But there is much to loathe about Twitter too. I'm thinking of the way it shortens our attention span; the mindless abuse that hollows out the soul; and the way it shortens our attention span. And then there is David Cameron tweeting pictures of himself on the telephone.