Full council meetings at Camden Town Hall are not famed for their entertainment value, but on Monday Labour members – and their socks – turned to Twitter to lighten proceedings.

Watching the meeting’s webcast from home on the night was the Camden New Journal’s Richard Osley, who unwittingly sparked a flurry of unusual picture posts to the social networking site from members in the council chamber.

Responding to Mr Osley’s Twitter commentary on the evening, Cllr Lazaro Pietragnoli tweeted a photo of his colleague Meric Apak’s choice of socks, adding: “Something @RichardOsley can’t see on #camden council webcast from his sofa: Cllr @1Meric Apak’s bright green socks :)”.

In turn, Mr Osley addressed all councillors in attendance, tweeting: “Come on councillors. All tweet your socks or the person sitting next to you’s socks. It’s the new big thing. Better than sniping.”

The pictures duly followed but not everyone tracking the meeting’s progress via Twitter saw the funny side.

One Twitter user, @PukkahPunjabi, tweeted: “£9.6k to tweet crap about socks? Disgrace.”

Another user, @Eddy39, was equally unimpressed, posting: “why r cllrs tweeting silly jokes about socks when they r making cuts to services @Ed_Miliband #labour dreadful @gdnpoliticswire”.