"a definitive who's who of the UK's tweet elite" - independent.co.uk
Its 200 million users share 110 million messages a day - and if you don't know who rules the twittersphere, you don't understand the 21st-century world. This guide is a definitive who's who of the UK's tweet elite.
1. Sarah Brown
Campaigner
The wife of the former Prime Minister has been recognised for some time as "the first lady of Twitter". She heads our list because she is influential as well as popular. (In terms of followers alone she would come only sixth.) An unexpected pioneer of the medium, the former PR executive was initially mocked for her artless outpourings but has earned her supremacy by sheer dependable goodness of heart. Her tweets are often mundane ("Had a great family walk along the Fife Coastal Path today with a hint of sunshine - no sign of the threatened storms or snow, Hah!" was a typical offering last week) but collectively reflect her liberal leanings, her interest in causes such as education and women's health, and her erstwhile position close to the centre of power. She picked up 1,000 new followers in one day last November by allowing her husband to guest-edit her page in support of Burmese democracy. Then tweeting as SarahBrown10, she rebranded herself after the Browns left Downing Street. "It is has been the greatest privilege to support the British govt and campaign for important causes these last 13 years #thankyougordon", she tweeted at the time. It is arguable that she is now more listened to than her husband