Tim Worstall has highlighted the Guardian's April Fools joke that it will in future be published on Twitter. He is running a competition for his readers to write the perfect Polly Toynbee column in 140 characters or fewer.
I thought I would challenge you to do the same.
Or, to take it a stage further, imagine the Telegraph switched to Twitter. Perhaps you could write your perfect Simon Heffer column in 140 characters too.
Quality journalism simply can't be condensed into 140 characters or less. Therefore the Telegraph wouldn't be able to make the move to Twitter.
ReplyDeleteThe Guardian on the other hand would be fine...
More tax (on rich). Labour good (with nosepegs). Torys bad.
ReplyDeleteTwaddle: Labour good, Tories bad.
ReplyDeleteHeffer: Labour bad, Tories bad.
Simon says "I don't need 140 characters - David Cameron is not a Conservative."
ReplyDeleteOK Here's my entry in the Heffalump competition:
ReplyDelete'Brown is Satan.Cameron isn't nasty enough therefore he is helping Satan.Running the Telegraph is much harder than running a political party.'
Here's my 140 characters
ReplyDelete"Looking out at the view from my Villa, I consider why other rich people won't do more to help the poor. I write my column. What do they do?"
Tories will eat your babies. Vote for anyone else. If it looks like the tories might win anyway, change the electoral system. This is progressive.
ReplyDeleteOK Here's my entry in the Polly Painbee competition:
ReplyDelete'I'm all for democracy me. There should always be a Labour Government. I'm all for tax. I don't like paying it. You is all hypocrits innit.'
Mr Council House - that is ace.
ReplyDeleteIt affronts me that again the BBC and single mothers have colluded to drain the state. And David Cameron does nothing. Nor do my subeditors!
ReplyDeleteThat is precisely 140 chars.
Government good, business bad. Labour good, Conservative bad. Europe good, America bad. Arab good, Israeli bad. Margate good, Tuscany better.
ReplyDeleteEvery Tuscan Toynbee outflow I've ever seen would look something this as a Twit:
ReplyDelete"We’ve ended child poverty – and saved the world, but there’s still more to do. Beware rich Tories who hate the poor and want to kill us all."
Barking (both of them).
They can’t see themselves for what they are; hypocritical, second-home owning, higher-income, middle-classes, walking by on the other side.
ReplyDeleteYou don't HAVE to be stinking rich to work here and write this inane, hypocritical crap; but it helps.
ReplyDeleteClearly they picked up on John Prescott being awarded a PhD in linguistics, as I reported earlier today:
ReplyDeleteThe Dialectic of Reality: Socialist realism in the works of Polly Toynbee
John Prescott
Department of English, University of California, (near) Berkeley
1. Toynbee and dialectic deappropriation
If one examines the subcapitalist paradigm of narrative, one is faced with a choice: either reject socialist realism or conclude that culture serves to exploit the proletariat, given that language is distinct from narrativity....
Nice challenge Monsieur Dale. Takes my mind off the G20.
ReplyDeletePolly: "Fools! Here in Holland Park, we understand poverty. The left will win. New Labour is trickier. Gordon knows best, as do I, your guilt-ridden but superior columnist."
Heff: "I am smart. None of you are. Cameron will vanish without trace. Bring Margaret back, but only under my firm guidance. Most of you are stupid. Wear a tie. The EU is awful."
Polly:
ReplyDeleteOnce I had to fly steerage, so I know all about poverty & when I got to my villa no-one had cleaned the pool and the champers wasn't chilled
OK. Here's a Heff in 140 chars:
ReplyDeleteIn my view, the problem with "Dave" is that he is not Enoch Powell. If he were Enoch Powell then he would not be "Dave", would he? Harrumph!
Toynbee: Oo Gordon! Oo Gordon! Oo Gordon! Oppressed people of Europe, go back to your communes and prepare for the dictatorship of the proletariat!
ReplyDeleteHeffer: Ew, Dave. Ugh, Dave. Argh, Dave. Squirming, wretched people of Inglund, go back to your cottages and prepare for the End of the World!
I never knew Simon Heffer and Polly Toynbee had so much in common. Of course, the thing with Polly is she doesn't know when to stop, and 140 characters would become 14,000 very quickly.
Above and beyond any of that, we all know that Iain Dale writes doubleplusgood columns.