Hi - larious!

Is this the best picture the BBC could find? Sums up things a bit though!

Laugh at the Leading Three

Well, just over a week before the polls open and postal votes are being sent! SO to lighten the mood here are 3 hilarious paradies of the leaders of the big three parties. Sorry to the SNP and Plaid Cymru but you aren't standing in a seat even remotely close to me...so for all I know... you don't exist!

Conservatives: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKFTtYx2OHc

Labour: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWbfvZF7-WQ

Liberal Democrats: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ed6YTaDtUxM

Facebook scrutiny?

I have kept up my record keeping on the political parties facebook pages, which I have taken once every 3 days(to reduce errors at the particular time I have taken them) and here are my results graphically so far.

As can be seen, the Liberal Democrats have made a huge surge after the tv debates started (15/4/10) and the momentum didn't stop after the 2nd debate (22/4/10) though it has slowred, despite the stronger performances of Gordon and David. The other parties growth has been much more linear in comparison, which suggests they haven't had much in the way of a push from the tv debates amongst facebook users. There is still plenty of time before we vote, can any more information be suggested by the medium of facebook?

In addition I have recently discovererd Facebook has a prejudice against the Labour party. To find the data for the above graph I have to search for each party using the search bar. Usually they pop up as a suggestion before the whole party's name is inputted, but recently the Labour party has stopped appearing altogether, even when the whole title is inputted, which means you have to follow through to the main search page before it can be accessed. However, whether this is intentional, something to do with my personal settings or something behind the search algorithms I am unsure. All I know is it only occurs for Labour.

In light of last night

The first of the three big televised debates took the grip of the nation last night, which turned out to be a rather pallid affair. There was no real fighting, and although the party leaders weren't so casual as to joke with one another, there were smiles all round and even some agreement between the parties.


The highlights for me were:

1. Nick Clegg's strong performance
2. David Cameron telling us Labour had done some good for the country during their 13 years in office.
3. Gordon Brown's general amicability
4. The 40 year old David Cameron reffered to, who's been working for the Navy for 30 years.

Another note I want to make is about what seems to be the key buzzword for this election. Every party is using it. Fair.  The weather has been so far this week, but there's still plenty of time for a political storm to brew. Though if you aren't signed up to vote you need to before the 20th April to make your opinions count! You can do here: http://www.aboutmyvote.co.uk/
 
And finally some numbers, carrying on from the last post.

facebook supporters:
BNP: 13,725
Conservatives: 45,776
Labour: 21,973

Li Dem: 25,529

It looks like the debate has had a significant effect on the number of Lib Dem supporters, and it's probably important to note the group I posted earlier this week about getting the Lib Dems into office has attained 41,211 members.

2010's elections are something a little bit special. The media storm(and associated technology) is bigger, better and faster at bringing news and opinions to potential voters than ever before, and in ever more formats. Newspapers, pamphlets, magazines, radio, television, blogs, websites and new formats such as live feeds, microblogging(twitter) and social networking sites (facebook) as well as the traditional word of mouth all come into play to push politics to the top of the agenda and down our throats! Not that I'm complaining too much, it is only for one month and it should be an exciting one at that. The most exciting thing about it? Firstly, by how much some people are getting all excited about it, and Secondly, the live televised debates. These threaten to turn the election into even more of a personality contest than it already is, but allow us a laugh at the largest political parties and a bigger insight into their policies and personalities than we'd otherwise gain without partialising ourselves and turning up at party rallies.

Speaking of policies, you should have a gander at this website and see which party's policies are the ones that you represent, I was suprised and especially so by the pool results so far! : www.voteforpolicies.org.uk

As far as predicting the election outcome however, I'd like to believe that the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats had a chance at winning, despite the constant Tory outcry of it being a 2 party race and as a result have sparked something in the souls of some British people who have started a facebook group backing the Lib Dems as the underdogs *cue Rocky Theme tune*. As far as the facebook evangelical party elite is concerned though we see:

Conservatives: 39,888 fans  (This rather large number in comparison to the other parties can be at least in part attributed to other conservative parties e.g. in the US)
Labour: 18,638 fans
LibDems: 16,828 fans
and disturbingly... BNP: 12,396 fans

Of course most voters aren't going to join a party's page as most of them are not part of a party and many of their views won't be upheld by a single party alone and many will be troubled over whether they should vote locally or nationally.Though the more supporters one has, the more potential supporters they can win over. It will be interesting to see how these numbers change through the campaigns.

I'm not sure how easily it can be predicted but I believe the televised debates will be particularly important in swaying some voters. My personal favourite prediction method for the prime porker however has to be this-> Snorters