Leaders debate: Cameron’s attacks on Clegg prove least popular moments with Facebook users

With nearly 130,000 users currently ‘liking’ Democracy UK, thousands logged-in during the hour-long debate to take part in the Rate the Debate application and pledge their sentiment about what was being said.

Results from the dial test pinpoint the highs and lows of the debate between the three candidates for prime minister.

Public  favourite Clegg started strong, with Gordon Brown a close second in the opening statements, whilst Cameron’s was the worst;

The three biggest peaks of positive reaction for the three leaders were at:

• Brown’s anger at bank bosses
• Cameron’s pitch on education and attack on Brown: “Gordon Brown has nothing left to say”
• Clegg’s defence of housing policy

While Cameron dominated the biggest share of the low points with his repeated attacks, it was Clegg who dipped most in popularity with his response on education  

Richard Allan, Director of European Public Policy at Facebook commented: “The Rate the Debate application has enabled Facebook users to have their say in the ever debates in our political history. 2010’s digital election has put the public in a position to have their say in real time, issuing comment as the campaigns unfold.”

The dial test allowed Facebook users to able to log on to Facebook’s Democracy UK page were they were able to use a dial on the screen to indicate how strongly they agreed or disagreed with what they are hearing, using buttons underneath to move the dial up or down.  The sentiments of all participating Facebook users were then aggregated in a real time online graph.

The dial test pinpointed precisely which bits of the debate hit the spot and which missed their target by charting the peaks and troughs of national sentiment as the debate progressed. The peaks show where the UK is united in agreement. The troughs show when the nation is collectively throwing its remote controls at the TV in frustration.

All the results from the dial-test are available for download as a spreadsheet from a dedicated page, located at http://apps.facebook.com/dialtest/export.php.

The dial test is hosted on Democracy UK, Facebook’s general election page which enables Facebook’s 23 million UK users to debate the key political issues facing the nation.

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