The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, has had a busy week. Not only has he delivered the budget, he’s also joined Twitter.
He quickly racked up over 30,000 followers as he and the Conservative Party pushed their #aspirationnation hashtag. It was, however, the Labour Party that won the battle of the hashtags.
Ed Milliband clearly had half a mind on Twitter when he exclaimed it was a “downgraded budget from a downgraded chancellor” and sure enough #downgradedchancellor was soon trending at number two globally. In total, it was tweeted roughly 3 times more than #aspirationnation.
Growth down, borrowing up, families hit, and millionaires laughing all the way to the bank #downgradedchancellor twitter.com/Ed_Miliband/st…
— Ed Miliband (@Ed_Miliband) March 20, 2013
However, it’s not all good news for Miliband. The overall sentiment associated with him was decidedly negative, whilst Osborne had a much more even split.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Of course, this is looking at automated sentiment which is not able to account for irony or sarcasm. However, due to the large quantity of data reviewed, it may be possible to draw some conclusions. It seems that although the Labour Party won the battle of the hashtags, the public were by no means enthralled with Miliband’s own performance.
