Autumn Statement ‘most popular political Twitter event of 2014’

Twitter analysis of yesterday’s Autumn Statement by think tank Demos and pollster Ipsos MORI, along with University of Sussex and CASM, revealed that there were 46,000 tweets generated overall, equalling around 780 tweets a minute. This surpassed both of the party conference leader speeches earlier in the year.

The analysis also revealed that the reaction from the general public was more positive than any other political event seen on social media in 2014. Over the course of the speech, Osbourne received three ‘boos’ for every ‘cheer’ (compared to Ed Miliband’s four boos to every cheer at the Labour party conference and Cameron’s 10 boos to every cheer at the Conservative conference).

The positive reaction came once Osbourne had moved from reciting budgets to announcing pledges, covering corporation tax, postgraduate student loans and stamp duty, the analysis revealed.

“George Osborne is one of the most disliked men on Twitter but today was actually a great performance for him,” said Carl Miller of Demos. “Our analysis found distinctly more cheers than any other politician has received for set-piece political events this year, including conference speeches and televised debates.

“People booed the integrity of the Government’s record but they cheered the policy announcements. Especially stamp duty which has a net positive response from the online commentariat – practically unheard of.”