No 10 Refuse to Deny Euro Entry Discussion

For those of a geeky persuasion, Twitter has become the app du jour. It's useful, quick, great for communicating short messages and has been picked up by many of the great and the good, including Stephen Fry, Robert Llewellyn, Iain Dale, Guido Fawkes and even John Cleese.

Of course, some of the great and less good use it too, including such luminaries as Tom Watson MP and the Spin Doctorate at Downing Street. And it's about the latter that I would like to talk.

It's important to understand that Twitter works best not as a broadcast medium, but as a conversation tool. It seems that the worthies at No 10 wish to use it to broadcast the many and varied achievements of Mr Twit, but aren't anywhere near as good at the second part - responding to questions from the Proles. Especially important questions.

Publicity message, 1530:

DowningStreet
PM has welcomed Nicolas Sarkozy and Jose Manuel Barroso to Number 10 for talks ahead of today's Global Europe conference on the economy. 21 minutes ago from web

My reply:

dungeekin

@DowningStreet: Please will you confirm, for the record, that UK entry to the Euro is NOT on today's agenda? 20 minutes ago from web in reply to DowningStreet


And so it continued. Me requesting a response every 30 minutes, getting nothing. I *know* they saw the stream, and the Direct Message with the same question. I know that they are official, releasing information on behalf of No. 10.

What's the point of using a communications medium if you only use it as a broadcast medium?

When you don't reply to a valid question, what we end up with is a refusal from the Downing Street Press Office to state, on the record, that UK entry to the Single European Currency was not discussed at today's meeting.

Still think we're not going to join? Or perhaps Downing Street would care to confirm, on the record, that UK Entry to the Euro was not discussed at the meeting?