Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2011/09/27/askedm_ed_miliband_signs_himself_up_for_another_hour_of_pasting_by_the_twittersphere/

Ed Miliband signs up for another hour of insults from Twitter

#askEdM: Labour leader will face the Great British Public

By Anna Leach

Posted in Legal, 27th September 2011 10:45 GMT

Leader of the Labour Party Ed Miliband has signed himself up for another hour of pasting and personal insults from the Twittersphere by agreeing to answer questions on the #askEdM hashtag for an hour on Wednesday afternoon.

As part of the Labour party conference – and a drive to engage with voters – Ed will be online and responding to tweets from 5.45pm on Wednesday. He has done this before, when, memorably, actual questions about policy were drowned out by the Great British Public making insinuations about his sexual practices and asking oddball questions which he was not in a position to answer: eg,"How much wood can a woodchuck chuck?"

During the previous session in June he was asked whether he'd ever consider employing Cheryl Cole (Ed replied: "Great idea! We'd love to have her doing stuff for us.") and whether he'd like to have a paint ball fight with David Cameron – no response recorded.

The hashtag has become busy already, although Ed won't start replying until Wednesday afternoon. Judging by what's around at the minute, the level of debate will not be any higher then. Highlights so far in the questions of the past two days include:

#AskEdM I'm going for a walk now, will you still be crying into your laptop when I get back ? – @blindcyclists

What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen European swallow? #AskEdM – @LudditeWebDev

#AskEdM You have a good head of hair for your age. What grooming tools do you use, Ed? – @RealPengy

And there are others so vile that I'm not even going to repeat them on The Register. And you know what our standards are like... ®