The Winner of the first prime minsterial TV debate .. sentiment opinion analysis now released

After the first of three Prime Minsterial TV Debates viewers expressed opinions on the BBCs Have Your Say discussion forum. Our sentiment analysis represents over 1500 comments on Gordon Brown and Labour Party, David Cameron and Conservative Party and Nick Clegg and Liberal Democrats.

This graph demonstrates winning word scores associated with each political party leader. A number of words were used to create this analysis, and the score is created by determining how closely in context the respective leaders are to these words. As can be seen, this analysis broadly reflects accepted public opinion, with Nick Clegg 'winning' the debate, and Gordon Brown coming last. However for the first time it is possible to quantitatively determine the public's response to the first debate. The analysis shows that Nick Clegg is the clear winner, and that David Cameron is closer to Gordon Brown than to overcoming Nick Clegg.

We will continue this analysis over the coming days, by analysing online discussions on the three leaders, and therefore show how trends are forming in the days running up to the election.





Election Trends answers ongoing questions of the publics popularity towards political parties and their leaders, the public perception of the character of the party leaders, and public confidence in the political parties. Election Trends presents ongoing daily election updates on existing topics, with special feature topics.

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