Missing puzzle piece

Why has Andrew Turner vanished from Social Media?

Some on social media are starting to notice that Andrew Turner has as-good-as vanished online from his Twitter account.

No updates for 1.5+ months
His previously-busy Twitter account hasn’t been updated at all for over a month and a half now.

It used to be very busy, but activity on the account has been sporadic since the end of October last year.

Especially strange given his campaign to ask the Isle of Wight to select him again to serve as the MP was launched in mid-January. Now is a time it would be expected he’d be trying to reach out to people using all means.

Press activity low too
It is, perhaps of note too, that his usual high volume of press releases have fallen to a virtually non-existent level and the response to press enquiries have been all but zero.

The graph of the Tweets on his account (From TweetStat) clearly show the story of a massive drop off in usage.

Analysis of Andrew Turner's Tweets

A tenth of previous
During the majority of 2014 (February 2014 – October 2014), the account put out an average of 350 Tweets/month, peaking in May 2014, when it reached the heights of over 600 Tweets in that single month.

Between November 2014 – February 2015 the monthly average fell to less than a tenth of previously, dropping to 34 Tweets/month.

Who was/is updating the Twitter account?
It was widely-understood that Andrew Turner’s Twitter account was updated by his now ex-partner, Carole Dennett.

OnTheWight sought clarification (via Twitter) from the MP, back in January 2014, on who Tweeted on his account:

“… and for clarity, it is you, Andrew Turner, that is putting all of these Tweets out?”

His reply was clear and emphatic,

“This is me – yes.”

MP split from partner: December 2014
News of the MP’s split from his partner was first made public on 9th December 2014.

Following this disclosure, it was announced Carole Dennett would no longer be working at Andrew’s office, although it’s uncertain if this has come to pass.

42 days to election
No matter what the reasons for the significant drop of Tweets on the Andrew Turner Twitter account for close-to six months, it’s all very strange for a man who insists that he’s keen to be returned as the MP for the Isle of Wight. The election is a mere 42 days away.

Twestion Time no-show
Andrew was the only candidate that didn’t take part in the Twestion Time (#TwestionTime) that was organised by the Isle of Wight college yesterday. Some confusion remains as to the circumstances around this.

Details of breaks in @theislandsmp Twitter output
If you’re looking for further details as to how Andrew’s Twitter account has/hasn’t been Tweeting, here are the details that we used as the core of this article:-

Frequent, often-daily, often-multiple-per-day Tweeting up until 29 Oct 2014
Then nothing until
11 Tweets on 10 Nov 2014, then nothing until
25 Tweets on 17 Nov 2014, then nothing until
25 Tweets on 23 Nov 2014, then nothing until
5 Tweets on 21 Dec 2014, then nothing until
1 Jan 2015. The sporadic Tweets until 5 Jan 2015
Then nothing until 24 Jan 2015
Then loads of Tweets until 6 Feb
Then nothing for 46 days and counting

We wrote to Andrew’s office over 24 hours ago with one very simple question and still have not received an answer.

Image: James Petts under CC BY 2.0