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The British public posted 5,000 tweets about the Spending Review in the 24 hours following its announcement and eight out of ten responses were negative, according to a new survey by digital agency Foresite.

The deepest articles of contention were welfare payments, provoking 960 tweets of which 99 per cent were negative, changes to the retirement age, which angered nine out of ten of the 831 respondents, and provisions for social care which triggered 573 responses and ruffled 280 feathers on the forum.

Amendments to housing benefits gave rise to anger in nine out of ten tweets, while 80 per cent of responses to the role of local government were negative.

George Osborne was unsurprisingly swept into much of the commentary, generating 1,200 personal mentions, seven out of ten of which were less than glowing.   

Despite the current popularity of Twitter as a vehicle for expressing opinion, fewer than a third of the 650 MPs in office hold Twitter accounts.

Barnaby Moffat, managing director of Foresite, said: 'This snapshot of Twitter usage demonstrates the public's willingness to engage with Government via social media. While the majority of MPs are not yet using this medium, we have noticed increased interest in our social media training services from public sector bodies.

'We expect to see this trend continue. In the face of major budget cuts, social media offers an inexpensive and effective way of communicating with the public, and many organisations that are engaging with networks such as Twitter and LinkedIn have found that they can be highly powerful tools.'

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