nice little dataset if someone wants to spend a few minutes analysing whether these tweets were all the result of each person receiving the same text, dm, or email with specific talking points in it

out of curiosity i went back to make a quick list of tweet/profile specs

10:53 - @DominicRaab, first secretary of state/foreign secretary, 205k followers

11:12 - @robertcourts, just an mp , 8k followers

11:19 - @RishiSunak, chancellor of the exchequer, 326k followers

cont.

13:05 - @Jacob_Rees_Mogg, lord president of the council, leader of the hoc, 406k followers

13:40 - @SuellaBraverman, attorney general, 27k followers

unsurprisingly, they times are spread apart but there is a general trend towards bigger accounts tweeting their defence later

two exceptions: one is the attorney general. but, whilst she might have one of the smallest follower counts in this set, arguably her role gives her statement *by far* the biggest clout

(also, it wouldn't be amazing if she was taking some time to get ALL ATHE legal advice )

the other interesting exception is @robertcourts, whose tweet arrives nineteen minutes after @DominicRaab's

both tweets contain the exact phrase "those now seeking to politicise it"

both share words like "explanation", "provided", "care", "look", "parent(s)", "child"…

so it fits in with the other tweets in terms of content, but by contrast, this account is a fraction of the size

so what's going on here? did he get the memo too?

one possible (probable?) explanation is that he simply took his cue from raab's tweet rather than any internal text

unremarkably, most of the big figures follow each other, and are followed by the political small fry, so this isn't revealing anything new

but perhaps the most interesting point is that @robertcourts' tweet is arguably the strongest clone of @DominicRaab's *at the lexical level*

by contrast, the other four tweets are alike on a *thematic* level - same topics, different words

or to go back to the first tweet: it looks like they were all sent 2-3 talking points, then wrote their own tweets, whilst courts looks to have modelled his directly on raab's

this is, incidentally, why essays all answering the same question are usually remarkably different, and why collaborative plagiarism (still) stands out

anyway, in the grand scheme, it hardly matters, and we'll likely never know the truth, but it's still fun to analyse

final (ha!) interesting thing i've noticed: "Dominic Cummings" and "DominicCummings" aren't trending

i can only speculate that twitter hq has noped his name out of the trending results to reduce the dogpiling

but, well, twitter is also twitter, soooo…

he's still trending

okay this rumbles ever onwards

what's the linguistics issue here? well, determining whether this is a lie or not pivots on how you define the word "family"

most people would likely include parents in that definition (and indeed far more besides) and consider this a lie https://twitter.com/pippacrerar/status/1264285594970206209

so, watch out for later "clarifications" that cast "family" in a very narrow semantic scope

a similar famous case is Clinton's "i didn't have sexual relations with that woman"

Clinton later created a very narrow definition of "sexual relations" to make his claim "truthful"

pronouns are now joining in the fray

tell me linguistics isn't just the awesomest https://twitter.com/mrjohnofarrell/status/1264304964152762368

every time i say, "final tweet!" something else happens so let's just say, "tweet on the definition of family"

i ran a quick poll on "family" (see replies good excellent commentary on finer nuance) and it gives a general sense: https://twitter.com/drclaireh/status/1264513980237742080?s=21 https://twitter.com/drclaireh/status/1264513980237742080

the next issue in this thread is whether cummings really did have the prescience to blog about covid in 2019 as he claimed in his press conference

the data here would suggest no https://twitter.com/drclaireh/status/1265028165447168003