Twitter has fast become the norm for politicians to campaign, communicate with constituents and build a media presence on a budget. There are 418 of a possible 650 MPs currently using Twitter in the UK - that’s 64% of the House of Commons tweeting away. The benefits of Twitter are obvious - it’s a quick, cheap and easy way of developing relationships, as well as communicating with large masses of people in just 140 characters.

The success of Barack Obama in 2009 prompted many politicians to rush to channels like Twitter, in the hope of looking creative, innovative and “on trend” with the technically savvy generation. It’s no surprise then, that 2009 saw the most UK politicians join Twitter, with 145 current MPs signing up to the micro-blogging platform (113 joined in 2010). Altogether, our MPs have tweeted 1,141,288 messages. If we imagine that it takes roughly 20 seconds for every tweet (this is entirely an estimation and has no statistical proof, but a general sense of how long it might take on average to send a tweet), then that means that these tweets took 22,825,760 seconds to write - this is the equivalent of 6,340 hours, or 264 days or even 8.7 months spent tweeting since 2007.

With this in mind we decided to take a look at some of UK’s top MPs on Twitter:

Top 10 MPs by Followers

It’s no surprise to learn that Prime Minister David Cameron is currently the most followed MP on Twitter, nor is surprising to see the opposition leader Ed Miliband coming in second - though some fifty-six thousand followers behind.

Noticeably, politicians Tom Watson and George Galloway feature 5th and 6th in the rankings - both attracting attention for being extremely vocal, if not controversial, in the media. Surprisingly, deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg only comes in 7th - despite the fact that he had huge support from Twitter during the last general election.

Top 10 MPs by Tweets sent

Kerry McCarthy leads the Twitter league for most tweets sent, having tweeted a staggering forty thousand times since joining Twitter in December 2008. The MP for Bristol East is well known for being technically savvy, as she boasts 18,000 followers (ranking 30th for the largest following), was the first MP to deliver a speech in the House of Commons with an iPad and is also a regular blogger.

However, Kerry’s eagerness to tweet has got her into trouble before - specifically in October 2010 when she admitted a charge of electoral fraud, accepting a caution from the police for revealing the number of postal votes cast in her constituency on Twitter. McCarthy also sparked an outcry in 2012,when she tweeted that a fellow train passenger should “have been killed before he can breed”.

Top 10 MPs by average Tweets per day sent

Whilst Kerry McCarthy might have the crown of most tweets sent, Karl Turner (Labour MP for Hull East) has been the most active on Twitter since joining. Turner tweets an average 42 times a day, nearly double that of McCarthy (26). However, Turner has just 5,507 followers on Twitter - so tweeting regularly doesn’t necessarily fire you into the spotlight! MP and ‘I’m a Celebrity…get me out of here!’ contestant Nadine Dorries also features in our list with an average of 15 tweets per day and according to Politics.co.uk she is the winner of the “Best MP on Twitter 2012”, despite only joining Twitter in January 2012. Her stint in reality TV did wonders for her Twitter presence, which saw her following gain eight thousand new followers in just the month that she appeared on ‘I’m a Celebrity’.

Should politicians be using Twitter or is it a waste of time? Leave us a comment below and let us know your thoughts.