David Cameron becomes the 370th member of the UK Parliament to join Twitter

David Cameron got onto the bandwagon finally by joining Twitter on Saturday, after shunning the social networking site for years before his prime minister-ship.

Following dozens of politicians, David Cameron now has a verified account ‘@David_Cameron’ on the micro blogging site, just a day before his Conservative political party begins its annual conference in Birmingham, UK.

Over the weekend, David Cameron gathered more than 88,000 followers. Twitter welcomed the Prime Minister, noting that he became the 370th member of the UK Parliament to join the site. David Cameron’s first tweet said, “I promise there won’t be ‘too many tweets…”, referring to a comment he had made on the UK radio in 2009 which drew heavy criticism.

The controversial comment which raised a furore was: “The trouble with Twitter, the instantness of it — too many twits might make a t**t”, David Cameron had said in an interview live on-air during the early morning breakfast show. David Cameron, who was then-leader of the opposition, was compelled to apologise for his comment.

Twitter had an estimated 32 million users, at the time of Cameron’s radio interview. Twitter followers reached 100 million mark just a year later.

Minutes after he joined Twitter, the Prime Minister encountered the ire of British public which barraged him with strong criticism. Political satirist, writer and producer Simon Blackwell said that he: “Heard that @David_Cameron is definitely real, but the man running the country is a parody account.”

David Cameron has a long road ahead to match the popularity of his allies on Twitter as current opposition leader Ed Milliband has 165,000 followers, while his US counterpart Barack Obama has 20.6 million followers, which is the sixth most popular Twitter account on the network by follower count.

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