Timing & the Twittersphere

Just a quick observation.

The #welovethenhs hashtag on Twitter has over the last 2-3 days gone totally viral. Catching an unsuspecting public unawares and picking up on Daniel Hannan’s latest ridiculous TV outings in the US. It made top headline on the BBC News website today, and has prompted Conservative leader David Cameron to speak out in support of the NHS. (Although not yet properly “slapping  down” Daniel Hannan, as I suggested in an earlier post Daniel Hannan’s outpourings on the NHS – Will Cameron slap him down ? )

But the response – spontaneous though it seems, has not been immediate.

This broadcast was a few days ago.

Also the quote which the BBC (and myself) seem to have picked up on is the one about the NHS being a “60 year mistake”  – and that wasn’t even in the latest interview – it was in the one which John Prescott was desperately trying to whip up a campaign about, several weeks back ( See John Prescott’s GoFourth blog  “Progressive, Don’t make me laugh !“).

The older video was actually pretty much “viral” in its own right on Youtube – and as much for the far right adulation of Hannan’s position as for any opposition to it.

Another Youtube video that has been given a lot of prominence has been a Fox news interview of neo-con Jerry Bower by Neil Cavuto in which a preposterous link between the NHS and Islamic terrorism is made, with several more ridiculously racist outbursts as well.

And when did this first get an airing on TV ?  Just before the Hannan video ? Just after ? Between the last one and this one ?

Well the date on Youtube is 7th July 2007.

So why is it that despite lots of hyping and effort by the great and the good – and hardly any attempt to cover these interviews up,  the issues have made barely a ripple in the mainstream news, and yet suddenly the collective conscience of Twitter decides that now is the time

And for a change Labour score a direct hit !

All I can say is that it can only be down to timing, and if the Labour party, or anyone else for that matter knew the secret as to how to manipulate it in relation to Twitter and the new media – then they’d have winning elections down to a fine art as well.

I’d also have far more visitors to my blog !