Libertarianism is the ideology of the future, judging by the new Prospect/YouGov poll on the “twitterati”. The survey found that Twitter users are more concerned with civil liberties than the public at large, but also that they are more likely to defend multimillion-pound salaries and large bonuses.
The belief that greater police powers to tackle terrorism are more important than protecting civil liberties is supported by 57 per cent of the public but less than half of British Twitterers.
Prospect’s press release suggests that the civil libertarian bias of Twitter users contrasts with the “popular view that David Cameron’s Conservatives and their blogging supporters are the most adept online force in politics”.
That may be so, but Twitter users also appear to be exactly the sort of constituency that David Cameron has so assiduously courted (with some success). To its shame, Labour has consistently been more authoritarian than the Tories on pre-charge detention and on ID cards. Prospect is right to identify Twitter as a “real force in British politics”; it’s not one that Labour can afford to alienate.
More broadly, it is clear that the user-driven nature of sites such as Twitter encourages a libertarian mindset. I think we can expect to see increasing numbers of Conservatives redefine themselves as libertarians, and to witness the continuing growth of new forms of digital socialism.
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