HMV staff hijack Twitter feed during wholesale axing

Through the account @hmvtweets the wholesale sacking was live tweeted, with the first message saying: "We’re tweeting live from HR where we're all being fired! Exciting!!"

Another explained how 60 employees were being fired at once, while a further one read: "Just overheard our Marketing Director (he's staying, folks) ask 'How do I shut down Twitter?'"

The Twitter takeover lasted around 20 minutes before HMV removed the tweets. The firm, which entered administration this month, was not quick enough to prevent the hashtag #HMVXFactorFiring from trending.

Ms Cleere justified her outburst on her personal Twitter account, saying that someone had to speak out and as someone with no mortgage or family, she felt she was the safest person to do so.

No redundancies have been made in shops yet, with all the 190 job losses coming from the head office and distribution network.