Given its central importance to everything we do, it really does surprise me that politicians don’t know how to use the internet. Well, some do. Zohran Mamdani in New York has a clever videographer; and Rupert Lowe of Reform in the UK is quite good at posting on X/Twitter. But for the very most part, finding an elected official with a proficiency in the humour, grammar and vocabulary of social media is rare. You do not have to spend the same amount of hours on Simon Harris’s TikTok account as I did to work this out.
What I found there was a comms strategy in need of a refresh; or a total redesign. I see a static image of the Tánaiste and his predecessor as Minister for Finance side by side. Emblazoned across the still is this lonely word: “PASCHAL”. It is strange. I scroll down and find similarly headlined videos: “FLOTILLA UPDATE”, “JUNIOR CERT”, “BUDGET DAY”, “GREYSTONES”. The overwhelming effect of this graphic strategy is to make the viewer think “please stop shouting at me”. The second-order effect is to make me think “why do only establishment politicians use TikTok like this?”.
And then, I dig a little deeper, beyond the still images, in hopes of finding something more edifying. One video is a rough cut montage of Harris lifting up babies at the Ploughing Championship, soundtracked to Can’t Hold Us by Macklemore, a song that no one has listened to since 2012. Farther down the feed I watch the Tánaiste standing in the rain at a podium telling the internet that no child is born a racist – which, while probably true, is a dreadful cliche. And would be better delivered under an umbrella, or inside.
@simon_harristd What an incredible day at the Ploughing with our presidential candidate Heather Humphreys. It was amazing to meet thousands of people from every corner of this beautiful country.Great to celebrate Irish agriculture, farming, and rural Ireland. Thanks to John Clendennen TD for the warm welcome! #irish #ireland #farm #agriculture #president ♬ original sound - Simon Harris
And then there is a piece to camera: “It’s easy to shout and roar at me in the Dáil,” Harris says, before detailing something forgettable about Fine Gael housing policy. The viewer will go away from this video – I, as a case in point – thinking little about Fine Gael housing policy and a lot about how our Tánaiste just admitted that he can get pushed around in the Dáil. Insofar as there is any extractable strategy in this volatile TikTok page, it is not a very good one.
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And with apologies to Harris, because he is not the only – in fact, far from the worst – perpetrator of bad social media practice. I watch Pearse Doherty walk down a beach, doing his best impression of Mamdani (it’s a bad one). And meanwhile, Mary Lou McDonald stands far too close to the camera and tells me boring things about an upcoming panel on rural healthcare in a united Ireland. In another she leans over her counter and explains that once she’s finished her “cuppa” she’ll be on the way to vote for Catherine Connolly. The overriding impression is that she has never actually said cuppa before, and never will again. These are people who are not literate in the internet, or at home on a phone screen.
@maryloumcdonald A quick cuppa and out to vote for Catherine Connolly, you should too🙌🏼💚
♬ original sound - Mary Lou McDonald
And they really need to be. Phone screens are the vectors for political communication now. McDonald wouldn’t be leader of Sinn Féin if she were completely inadequate at speaking in the Dáil; same goes for Harris and Fine Gael. But on the far greater platform than a small room in Dublin – the frontierless internet – for some reason they are excused for their uselessness. Oh don’t worry, it’s only the 2.2 million Irish TikTok users who might see that! Such persistently slap dash comms wouldn’t be tolerated elsewhere, and for inexplicable reasons are tolerated where they matter most.
All of this comes to mind as Keir Starmer has launched his own Substack – a free-to-read email newsletter. When I consider that the prime minister of a country that once ruled half the planet now talks to voters via a newsletter, the psychology behind Brexit voters makes more sense to me. Talk about waning grandeur. Nonetheless it is a good idea: newsletters are how legacy brand media companies communicate with their readers now. Audiences like them.
But Starmer has the same problem as his Irish colleagues: he isn’t au fait with the language of the internet. It opens: “Welcome to the first post on my brand new Substack newsletter. You’re probably wondering why I’m here. I’ll get into it in more detail below, but the long and short of it is that I’m always looking for new ways to explain why we are doing what we are doing.” How is that for bland? Social media operates in a chatty vernacular, a lax cadence, whatever you want to call it. But the prime minister has made no attempt to adapt to a new environment – he is using a platform in 2025 like it’s 2010.
I would prefer if politics was still about old fashioned oracy, pen to paper, stirring entreaties and punchy manifestos delivered through mailboxes. But it is not – it is newsletters, short-form video and – still, for now – tweets. This has been apparent to us for some time. Why have so few bothered to learn how to do it well? We punish politicians for far less consequential failures than this.
