Gordo the Saviour! Dave the Cowering! And more…
I have some sympathy for Nick Robinson (bear with me now…) He does, on some occasions, have to form his analysis of political events extremely quickly, and then promptly figure out how to articulate it in a snappy way to an audience with the collective attention span of a hairdresser’s goldfish. I reckon I’d fail miserably at such a task, so just as well that I have the luxury of getting my points across on a blog, several days after the event.
Nonetheless, I am going to add another knife to those already inserted in his back, following his incorrect verdict that last week’s TV debate was encapsulated by “I disagree with Nick”. Statistics from the show, you see, reveal that Call Me Dave was, in fact, the most attacked leader (not Nick). Interestingly, Call Me Dave was also the meekest, perhaps in nervous, cowering mode, given the sudden possibility of him entering future history books and DVDs as the failed Tory leader who was forced into electoral reform.
The graph below shows how belligerent each of the leaders were:
Some more interesting findings come from examining the number of words uttered by each leader. Clearly looking to appeal to the more nationalist element of the electorate, Gordo and Call Me Dave both had “country” in their top two words, with “Britain” being Gordo’s fifth most used word. Notably, “country” only just scraped into Nick’s top 10 words, and neither he nor Call Me Dave had “Britain” in their top 10.
Gordo’s reputation as a self-styled wannabe global saviour is further enhanced by the analysis. Out of the three leaders, he used the most language relating to international affairs, with the following words all appearing in his top 10: “Britain”, “country”, “world”, “Europe”, “European”.
The top 10 lists of words are below, with a couple of other graphics to keep you amused. This research, I must confess, was not done by myself, but rather done entirely by Millward Brown. Which is nice of ’em.
Shared Words: [sorry, can’t get this to be more visible. If you want a copy, e-mail admin *-AT-* liberal-vision.org]
All three leaders’ top words combined, by frequency:
