The coalition faces an electoral test next week with the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election and the political dials have been turned to max.  The seat became vacant when the Liberal Democtrats challenged the win by Labour’s Phil Wooolas, who stood down after a judgement he lied during the campaign.  Ten candidates are standing including: Labour’s Debbie Abrahams, the Liberal Democrat’s Elwyn Watkins and the Conservative’s Kashif Ali.

Last May, Watkins lost by 103 votes and Deputy PM Nick Clegg has this week been on the campaign trail in the up-for-grabs constituency.  It’s a good time to gauge the sentiment of social media users towards the three main political party leaders and their local candidates.   Looking at the national picture for first week of January, Clegg has captured the social conversation.

Figure 1: Buzz volumes for political leaders – 1/1 – 7/1

In terms of sentiment, Clegg had the highest proportion of negative mentions with 9% compared with PM David Cameron at 6% and Labour leader Ed Miliband at 8.7%.  But, on the flipside, Clegg also marginally had the highest number of positive mentions at 22.8%, Cameron with 22.5% and Miliband at 19.9%.

Figure 2: Sentiment expressed towards political leaders – 1/1 – 7/1

Sample negative mentions for the three leaders included:

‘Nick Clegg Badgered By Student Protester As He Visits Oldham Ahead Of By-Election’ (Tweet by Iain_31 5/1)

‘The phone-hacking scandal gets a step closer to David Cameron’s press aide with editor sacking …’ (Tweet by Doug Saunders 5/1)

‘Oh. And Ed Milliband is talking utter rubbish in The Times again today. #LabourFail’ (Tweet by Spiderplant Blog 6/1)

And, positive mentions included:

‘The politics are simple enough. Nick Clegg and his Lib Dem cabinet comrades have been blamed disproportionately …’ (Blog post on The Guardian 2/1)

‘David Cameron to invest in ‘industries of the future’ …’ (Tweet by TelePolitics 5/1)

‘…Labour will establish a big lead in the polls and Ed Milliband will be seen to be doing a good job by the end of the year’. (Blog post on Capitalists@Work 2/1)

But, what does the local picture look like for the main parties’ three candidates in the by-election?

Figure 3: Sentiment expressed towards specified candidates in the by-election – 1/1 – 7/1

In the past week, the Liberal Democrats’ Elwyn Watkins had the highest proportion of negative mentions at 15.8% with the Conservative’s Kashif Ali at 10.3% and Labour’s Debbie Abrahams at 1.5%.  In terms of favourable comment, Abraham’s led with 39.7%, Watkins stood at 34.2% and Ali at 19%.