We were all a bit shocked on Thursday when it appeared columnist Melanie Phillips had set up a Twitter account and even more surprised when by Monday she had more than 800 followers and had tweeted more than 200 messages.

It turns out that she had been impersonated and the real Ms Phillips was quick to blog: “For anyone who may have been taken in by an impersonator who is pretending that I am now on Twitter, let me make it clear – I am not on Twitter and have never uttered a single Tweet.”

But it wasn’t only us at the JC who were fooled.

Jonathan Freedland, Iain Dale and David Schneider were also among the duped.