Pith Follows British Leader on Twitter

Prime Minister David Cameron must have felt kind of cool, if a little late, when he joined Twitter on Oct 6.

“I promise there won’t be ‘too many tweets ...’ ” he wrote in his first message, as if quoting someone. Give him points for effort. But Cameron, who had already attracted more than 80,000 followers by Sunday afternoon, clearly had not reckoned with the sharp, anarchic sense of humor that Twitter can unleash, particularly among the annoyed and the restive. Angry at the government’s economic philosophy, at an austerity budget filled with measures cutting jobs and services, at the reorganization of the National Health Service, at recent suggestions by Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, that he would like to limit abortion rights, the Twitter-using public unleashed a torrent of witty, mean remarks. Some teased Cameron’s privileged background and rich friends. Others attacked his policies. Others were just funny.