| Blog |
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%.
The political cauldron has turned red hot as we wait for the details of the coalition’s October spending review. But, first up – the Labour leadership contest. The party’s new leader will be announced on Saturday at the start of its conference in Manchester.
Our system analysed around 6,000 mentions of the contest in real-time, in online and social media over the past couple of weeks. Ed Balls had the strongest share of voice with 26.8%. David Miliband took second spot with 25.2%.
Figure 1: Share of voice for Labour leadership contenders – 2/9 to 16/9
But, the sentiment analysis for the discussion showed Ed Miliband has had the highest proportion of positive mentions with 33.5%.
Ed Balls may have captured the conversation but he had the lowest proportion of positive mentions among all the contenders with 28.4%. David Miliband and Ed Balls had the highest proportion of negative mentions at 6.3%.
Figure 2: Sentiment expressed towards Labour leadership contenders – 2/9 to 16/9
There’s been a a bit of a buzz around Ed Miliband with speculation he could win after second votes on discounted candidate ballot papers have been counted. His older brother David has been firm favourite.
Mike Smithson on Political Betting (13/9) reported the results of last week’s Sunday Times YouGov poll of members and trade unionists, some of whom had already voted. The results indicated that Ed Miliband has taken a small lead.
David Miliband was by far the most popular choice among Labour voters according to the results of a recent ComRes poll. But, the leader will be elected by members and trade unions so the YouGov poll could be more accurate on the outcome.
Whoever wins, it could be a very close result.
Our next political analysis will be the coalition’s spending review.
We took a breather in the past few days from all the furore surrounding today’s emergency budget and ran a quick sentiment analysis of the Labour leadership contest. Ed Miliband, Ed Balls, David Miliband, Andy Burnham & last-minute nominee Diane Abbott were selected to go head-to-head in a bid to lead their party after the election defeat.
One of the lingering early issues of the campaign has been the Oxbridge education of all of the contenders. For example, influential blogger Guido Fawkes (18/6) ‘had to laugh at the Coronation Street “man of the people” look and feel’ of Ed Ball’s new website. The blogger also wondered ‘how many people from the real-world depicted by Corrie went to elite public schools, Oxford and on to Harvard’.
With the exception of Diane Abbott, they all followed the same path: Oxbridge, policy adviser to the Blair / Brown governments, then cabinet minister. Some analysts felt the long-running contest had all the excitement of watching a punctured balloon trying to take off. What were the differences between the candidates, where did they want to take the Party after its election defeat? Who was leading the pack?
It was a good week to take a look at the race, especially as the contenders went up against each other on Newsnight’s live TV debate with Jeremy Paxman and an audience of voters.
Figure 1: Buzz volumes for the Labour leadership discussion in online media
Over the reporting period, our system analysed around 14,000 mentions of the contest, in real-time, in online and social media. The spike in coverage on 15 June was driven by news of the TV debate.
Ed Balls was by far the most talked about in the web discussion with more than 4,000 mentions. Diane Abbott was in second spot with over 2,800 mentions. Andy Burnham was the least talked about.
So, what’s been said about the five contenders over the reporting period.
We ran a quick comparison report to look at the sentiment scores for each in online media.
Figure 2: Sentiment for the Labour leadership discussion in online media
In terms of positive mentions – our system scored Ed Miliband highest at 32.3 per cent of his coverage. Diane Abbott was second with 31.9 per cent.
Andrew Sparrow on The Guardian’s Politics Live Blog (16/6) analysed the performance of each candidate during the Newsnight debate with positive comments for Ed Miliband and Diane Abbott on their stance on immigration. Ed Balls had apparently consolidated his position as the ‘anti-immigration’ candidate during the Q&A session, while ‘others, such as Ed Miliband and Abbott, showed more sophistication on this topic, pointing out the underlying problems, such as a shortage of housing’.
Positive comments for David Miliband included many tweets in support of his campaign and approval of his sharper style during the TV debate.
Andy Burnham was praised for his communication skills and focus on policy. He was also singled out as the only candidate that was trending on Twitter after Newsnight.
There were also some favourable mentions of Ed Balls’ better-than-expected Newsnight performance.
However, there was criticism levelled at Ed Miliband over his move to distance himself from the war in Iraq and accusations that he was rewriting the history books. Ed Balls was also in the firing line for his attempts to distance himself from the last Labour administration on immigration policy. David Miliband attracted negative comment on his close ties with New Labour and Tony Blair and the war in Iraq. Andy Burnham’s comment that the Iraq war gave hope to its people was also criticised. Diane Abbott’s relationship with Michael Portillo on the TV show This Week generated negative mentions.
On 15 June, the Fabian hustings exit poll put Ed Miliband as favourite with 40 per cent approval. Interestingly, Michael Crick (14/6) posted speculation that David Miliband might resign from politics altogether if Ed Miliband wins, because he might find it difficult to serve under his younger brother.
