The results of the House of Commons Speaker elections last night were delivered live via twitter throughout the evening. At every voting round the results were posted live on Twitter within seconds of being announced to MPs.
This was made possible because many of the MPs were doing the posting themselves, apparently live from the floor of the House.
Possibly the first to announce the result was Liberal Democrat MP for East Dunbartonshire Jo Swinson, who earlier in the evening revealed who she was voting for in the supposed secret ballot. Both Tom Watson MP and Jim Knight MP leaked the unofficial result five minutes before it was announced to MPs. Whilst the voting figures they gave were wide of the mark, they both had the winner right, meaning for the first time ever ordinary voters had the result before many MPs.
The rapidly increasing number of MPs now microblogging (sometimes from inside the chamber) is potentially far more significant for the House than the appointment of John Bercow MP as a radical reforming Speaker.
PR and the Social Web 