The Russian Embassy's Twitter goading of British PM Theresa May in recent days can only be described as Trumpian.
In response to May's expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats over the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, @RussianEmbassy tweeted: "The temperature of Russian-British relations drops to -23, but we are not afraid of cold weather". Oooh!
This, and other jokey and sarcastic tweets in recent days, comes in stark contrast to the official response from the embassy, which, while full of outrage and righteous indignation, was at least serious, terse and measured.
I still can't really believe that governments, embassies and politicians are using Twitter for official and semi-official pronouncements. It may or may not be a reflection of technological progress and the modern Zeitgeist, but that doesn't change the fact that it is a totally inappropriate medium. Donald Trump was not the first politician to use the platform for official business, but he has been almost single-handedly responsible for dragging the tone of worldwide political discourse down into the gutter. Now, everybody feels obliged to slum it down there too. What a state of state affairs!
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