THE Twitter experiment by Greater Manchester police failed last night after officers were unable to add a third word to their tweets.
Thousands of Twitter followers, keen to gain an insight into the daily life of one of Britain’s biggest forces, were left disappointed after hundreds of abrupt, non-specific posts including ‘bad thing’, ‘thing stoled’ and ‘car hurt’.
There were also more than 2000 tweets saying ‘reasonable force’ and ‘probably darkies’.
The project was designed to highlight the duties performed by police that are not reflected in official statistics, such as using a riot van to help move a friend’s sofa or tasering each other for a bet.
A spokesman said: “Too hard. How make? Three words? Can’t make. Bother.”
He added: “Twitter. Funny word. Like birds! Tweety tweet! I bird. Bird fly! Ouch.”
Chief constable Peter Fahy, who has been able to string together up to five words for over a year, said the exercise now highlighted the danger of cutting police adult literacy budgets.
He added: “Police can’t make enough words. This very bad for Britain. Look at my fancy hat.”
But so far the initiative has failed to convince ministers, with one senior Home Office source comparing Manchester policing to ‘installing a burglar alarm on a dungheap’.
Wayne Hayes, a Trafford-based criminal who specialises in being caught, said: “It was quite humiliating, having a copper beat me with a length of garden hose with one hand and typing the word ‘fuckface’ into his Blackberry with the other.”
The spokesman added: “Like hose. Hose good.
“Hello hose!”
