In the middle of a furiously competitive election campaign, it's no surprise that partisan papers have turned on a political leader who has threatened to change the whole narrative.

Five years ago, we might have had to wait 24 hours before we saw how the general public was reacting. Now it takes a morning to move the whole story on.

And if you believe that Twitter is any guide to the public mood - a big "if", of course - many have reacted not just with indifference and scorn to the various attacks, but most powerfully with ridicule.

First thing this morning someone created the #nickcleggsfault hashtag on Twitter - and it immediately caught on as way of ridiculing attacks on the Lib Dem leader.

By lunchtime, it was the third-biggest trending topic (that's a measure of interest) on Twitter around the world; as I write, dozens more Tweets with the hashtag are appearing every minute. Here are just a few:

"Just had a giant chocolate eclair with cream. All #nickcleggsfault"

"We've run out of houmous #NickCleggsfault"

"Pompey not being allowed to play in Europe. #nickcleggsfault"

"Got rid of the wasp and a new wasp has arrived. #nickcleggsfault"

"I got my debit card stolen #nickcleggsfault"

The blogosphere too reacted quickly to this morning's front pages, notably the Conservative blogger Iain Dale. He called the attacks on Nick Clegg "shameful", arguing that they would backfire.

His post has attracted a vigorous debate from commenters, many supporting him but plenty also accusing him of naivete.

And there's also been a robust response to the attacks on the papers from another Conservative blogger.

Benedict Brogan, whose paper the Daily Telegraph carried the revelations about payments into Mr Clegg's personal account, said the story was just proper scrutiny of a politician, not a smear.

The papers may believe that Twitter is populated by a cappuccino-sipping yoghurt-knitting liberal crowd - and that they have a better grasp of their readers reactions than the digital mob.

And here's another funny thing: a company which analyses sentiment on Twitter says there is a massive volume of tweets about Nick Clegg and they're all negative.

But I have a sneaking suspicion that nearly all those tweets contain the #nickcleggsfault hashtag, and that the company's computers just don't do irony.

