Twitter users point out: 'It's Nick Clegg's fault'

Dog eaten your homework? Guess whose fault it is… Twitter users have been taking a tongue in cheek approach to the UK media backlash against Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg in the run up to polling day.

By Rachel HOLMAN (text)

The press coverage of the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg following his surge in popularity after the live TV election debate was largely positive. However, it did not take long for the media backlash against this previous outsider in the British election race to begin.

The negative coverage has been coming from various UK media outlets, including the Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph and The Sun. The negative stories have ranged in subject from campaign financing to, bizarrely, his libido. One newspaper went so far as to label left-wing Clegg a Nazi.

Now Clegg supporters have taken to Twitter with a tongue in cheek campaign to highlight what they view as the unfairness of the recent media attacks on their man. They are doing so in the finest British tradition of creating a series of highly sarcastic jokes.

The catchphrase now doing the rounds is: “It’s Nick Clegg’s fault”.

For example, user Dyer _ 1985 complained about “earache”, BradleeArendt pointed out the problems of “Global Warming”, and finally byrnejamie said that he was upset because he “Can't find (his) damn shoes”. Well, guess whose fault it is? That’s right, its “Nick Clegg’s fault.”

According to one Twitter user, the San Andreas Fault has now been renamed "Nick Clegg's fault."

There is even a song now doing the rounds on YouTube to point out how everything bad is, in fact, "Nick Clegg's fault."

Using humour, Tweeters are mocking the right-wing media's attacks on Clegg and galvanised support for him in the process.

To highlight the prevalance of this online campaign, it was the third most popular topic by interest on the Twitter site by lunchtime yesterday.

Whether or not this critique of the mass media machine is taken into account or not, Tweeters have created a voice for themselves in this tight election race, and yes, in some ridiculous way, it’s Nick Clegg’s fault.