"Some of Clegg's most fervent supporters can be found on Twitter. From midway through the first TV leaders' debate, and with increasing intensity thereafter, he has dominated election tweets. As the press started to turn on Clegg, tweeters even dared to use irony, so often a counterproductive tactic, to show their support for him. The running joke, on #Nickcleggsfault, in which he was blamed for a series of supposed sins, has been hugely popular. Example: "Nick Clegg lived in the same town as a seriously ill man and never visited him, though he knows he has a spare kidney."

Just as importantly, tweeters used the social networking site to lampoon the Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph and Sun. Hundreds of tweets on Friday pointed to a website that features scores of imaginary anti-Clegg Mail headlines: Will Clegg cheat the middle class? Has Clegg given hard-working families cancer? Is Nick Clegg destroying Britain's farmers?"

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