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Brexit Twitter Sentiment Analysis: Faisal’s 683 Negative Tweets Since Referendum

Data Guido has been working hard in a dark room, crunching the numbers to see whether our top broadcast journalists really are impartial on Brexit. So far we have analysed Robert Peston’s relentlessly negative Twitter feed and Nick Robinson’s less than neutral musings. Next up we have Sky News’ Faisal Islam, the Remainers’ TV darling…

Faisal has sent 1,467 tweets about Brexit since 24 June 2016.
87 tweets had a positive sentiment, that’s just 6% of his total tweets.
697 tweets were neutral, that’s 47.5%.
683 tweets were negative, that is 46.5% of his total Brexit tweets having a negative sentiment.

Faisal tweets a huge amount about Brexit, far more than Peston or Robbo. The vast majority of his tweets are split between having either a negative sentiment or a neutral sentiment. Only 6% have a positive sentiment. He has sent a massive 683 negative tweets about Brexit since the referendum, which is unrivalled among his broadcast peers.

Guido’s statistical analysis of Faisal, Peston and Robbo has found that three of the highest profile broadcasters covering Brexit tweet with overwhelming negativity. They promote opponents of Brexit far more than proponents, they report negative stories far more than positive ones, and they occasionally let their own pro-Remain opinions slip through as well. The BBC, ITV and Sky are supposed to be impartial – the evidence shows their Brexit journalists are anything but…

September 14, 2017 at 1:52 pm

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Brexit Twitter Sentiment Analysis: Peston 82% Negative

Data Guido has been hidden away in a dark room, crunching the numbers to see whether our top broadcast journalists really are impartial on Brexit. It is rarely the case that one individual tweet gives the game away and reveals a top TV presenter’s biases – they usually won’t be so careless. Yet when you dig deeper you get a very different picture. Data Guido has collated every single tweet about Brexit sent by three top journalists from three major broadcasters since the referendum. We then categorised them as having either a positive sentiment about Brexit, a negative sentiment about Brexit, or being neutral. We started with ITV’s Robert Peston…

Peston has sent 284 tweets about Brexit since 24 June 2016.
3 tweets had a positive sentiment, that’s just 1% of his total tweets.
47 tweets were neutral, that’s 17%.
234 tweets were negative, remarkably that is 82% of his total Brexit tweets having a negative sentiment.

Not much of a surprise given Pesto is best friends with Remain campaign supremo Roland Rudd and spent the referendum trying to do in Vote Leave. Though it’s not very becoming of a supposedly impartial broadcaster. Stay tuned for Data Guido’s Twitter sentiment analysis of two other prominent TV hacks…

September 12, 2017 at 1:17 pm

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Data.Gov.UK Exposes Users’ Names & Passwords in Massive Data Breach

Yesterday the Cabinet Office emailed asking users to reset their passwords for data.gov.uk, as somehow there’s been a leak of user names, emails and (hashed) passwords. The Cabinet Office is responsible for the government’s “digital first” information technology strategy. Oops…

A year ago the US government first revealed that hackers had stolen personnel files of some 21 million current and former federal government employees. The massive data breach – blamed on Chinese hackers – covered everyone who had undergone background checks for federal employment. Everything, from Social Security numbers to birth dates, even fingerprint records, was accessed. What has happened here?

June 30, 2017 at 4:52 pm

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Net Migration Down 84,000

Net migration fell to 248,000 in 2016 – down 84,000 year-on-year. Immigration was estimated to be 588,000 and emigration 339,000.

Eastern European EU8 citizens have partly driven the changes with a fall in immigration (down 25,000) to 48,000 and a rise in emigration (up 16,000) to 43,000 in 2016.

UK Q1 GDP was also revised down to 0.2% from 0.3%. The ONS said a slowdown in household spending as prices rose was to blame.

Stay tuned for UKIP’s manifesto launch shortly…

May 25, 2017 at 9:38 am

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Tory Lead 23 Points, UKIP on 4%

New IpsosMORI poll:

Con 49 (+6), Lab 26 (-4), LD 13 (nc), UKIP 4 (down 2).

That’s the biggest Conservative lead since September 2008. Theresa May also has the best “most capable” leadership score ever, better than Blair or Thatcher.

“Some 61% chose Mrs May, with 23 per cent picking Mr Corbyn.

“Three-times election winner Baroness Thatcher never came close – her best score was 48% which she first hit in May 1983 on the eve of a landslide triumph against Michael Foot.

“Labour’s most successful election winner Tony Blair touched 52% in May 2001, just before he crushed William Hague in the general election.”

Looks like the end for UKIP…

April 26, 2017 at 11:43 am

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New Statesman Cooks the Books With Free Copies

New Statesman editor Jason Cowley has been boasting to anyone who’ll listen about how his magazine’s print circulation is at a four decade high. Last week Cowley crowed to the BBC’s Amol Rajan:

“In an era of fake news, people are realising that good journalism is worth spending money on. While much of the liberal media has been struggling to survive in a declining market dominated by powerful media groups, the New Statesman has not merely held its position but expanded dramatically”

Delve into the Statesman’s ABC certificate, however, and it becomes clear they are cooking the books…

Only 68.6% of the Statesman’s circulation is “actively purchased” – this is remarkably low and well below its competitors. Put another way, the Statesman gives away 31.4% of its copies for free. They might have their highest circulation for 40 years, but they are giving one in three copies away for no charge…

Compared to their rivals, the Statesman is significantly fiddling its figures. The Spectator gives away just 11.9% of its circulation for free – fewer than 1 in 8 copies. 15% of the Economist’s circulation is given away for free. The Week gives a quarter of its copies away for free. 0.1% of Private Eye’s circulation are freebies. The Statesman’s addiction to giveaways stands out – and helps them massively manipulate their headline circulation figure.

Cowley’s boast last week claimed “In an era of fake news, people are realising that good journalism is worth spending money on”. This itself is fake – a third of the Statesman’s print readers don’t spend any money – not counting that it is also free online, whereas rivals like The Economist and The Spectator have online paywalls. “In an era of fake news”, surely the Statesman should be more honest…

February 14, 2017 at 11:39 am

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Leavers United, Remainers Divided

Leave MPs are united on what they want from Brexit while Remainers are hopelessly divided and cannot agree a line. Not just the conclusion of anyone who watched yesterday’s Commons debate, this is the finding of a new survey by Queen Mary University. While there is a near consensus among Leavers on the importance of controlling immigration, Remainers are split on whether to prioritise the single market (47%) or border controls (31%). On paying into the EU budget, again there is a near consensus against among Leavers, while Remainers are divided. As Professor Anand Menon says: “Remainers are much more divided over what to prioritise – which may well make them less able to shape the debate”. A brief look at the varying positions of Anna Soubry, Chuka Umunna, Owen Smith, Ed Miliband, Jeremy Corbyn and the two LibDem factions tells you much the same.

Another titbit in Philip Cowley’s survey: 70% of Labour MPs say they are now less supportive of referenda:

That’s democracy for ya…

February 1, 2017 at 12:01 am

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Revealed: The Sweariest MP on Twitter

Outgoing Jamie Reed is the rudest MP on Twitter, using 20 swear words in 2016 according to analysis by Polimonitor. Hopefully he can chill out a bit when he leaves parliament in a couple of weeks. No surprise that Michael Dugher is up there, nor Nicholas Soames who has a penchant for calling people “chateau bottled nuclear powered ocean going sh*ts”. Jess Phillips and John Woodcock are some of the most potty mouthed. Almost as if the Corbyn-hating Labour moderates are angry with the world…

January 12, 2017 at 5:30 pm

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‘Shy’ Tories Actually Just Busy, Labour Voters Home More

It is often said half-teasingly that canvassers and pollsters are more likely to meet Labour voters than Tories because Tory voters are still at work. Now there is empirical evidence for the claim. Professor John Curtice, perhaps the only pollster with his reputation intact after he called the 2015 election, says there is no such thing as “shy” Tories skewing polls, they are just “busy“. Curtice’s study found that if polls were based on people who answered the door on a first visit, Labour would be six points ahead. If polls were based on those who needed three to six visits before answering, the Tories had an 11 point lead. His conclusion: Labour voters were more likely to be at home rather than out at work.

“Conservatives are just simply more difficult to get hold of. There is an availability bias. People who you can get hold of first time round, who say, ‘oh yes come in’ are disproportionately Labour voters. The people you can easily get hold of are not representative.”

As the old joke goes, the Tory voters really were still at work…

November 17, 2016 at 8:51 am

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Trump Increased Black and Latino Vote

CNN’s exit poll shows how Trump increased the Republican share of the Black and Latino vote over Mitt Romney. He improved the Latino share by 2% and the African American vote by 1%. White women also voted overwhelmingly for Trump – 53% to Hillary’s 43%. Despite all of his comments he actually did better than Romney with women and minorities.

The Republicans also kept control of the Senate and the House of Representatives:

‘Unelectable’ Corbyn must be getting excited…

November 9, 2016 at 2:13 pm

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Services PMI Strong

The pound has jumped again on the back of strong numbers from the services sector. When the jobs data came in strong last month Remainers said that manufacturing was cratering and that would translate into job losses later. Then when the manufacturing PMI came in strong the Remainers said that it was actually services that were being hammered. This morning saw the biggest jump in the PMI services number on record…

So Remainers are running out of bad news. We have gone from the Brexit vote leading to a “global economic shock” requiring an emergency budget to “it is too soon to tell”, “Brexit hasn’t happened yet”. Yet when stocks went down (they are now higher) it was immediate evidence, when the pound went down it too was immediate evidence. These moves were all based on expectations conditioned by politicians and economists who have been proved wrong as the economic data comes in. Every new data point proves them demonstrably wrong.

And what about the 71% of City economists who predicted a recession this year? Not one has taken up Guido’s offer of a £1,000 bet…

September 5, 2016 at 10:00 am

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“Corbyn” Surges By 50% as New Baby Name

“Corbyn” has surged in popularity as a new baby name in the last year, ONS data has revealed. The Labour leader’s surname, which means “raven haired”, increased in popularity as a boy’s name by 50% since 2014. There were also three Korbyns and 19 Corbins. “Corbyn” was 36% more popular than “Blair” in 2015…

Who cares if he is 65 points behind Theresa May in a Survation favourability poll? He’s more popular than Blair!

H/T Jon Stone

September 2, 2016 at 4:39 pm

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How British Empire Beats EU for Olympic Medals

The former countries of the British Empire won 396 medals – 138 more medals than a post-Brexit EU. While the European Parliament invents an EU state to “win” the Olympics, the medal tally of a one-time actual supra-state leaves Brussels for dust. Former member countries of the British Empire accrued 76 more medals than the rest of the world (24%). In all, the Empire’s score of 137 gold medals trounces the EU’s, which after removing Great Britain sits at just 79.

Looking at other alliances NATO countries took a stunning 443 out of the 974 medals on offer (45%), while Anglosphere countries grabbed a whopping 288 – 30% of the world total. This is compared to Francophone states’ measly 87 (9%), even with Canada’s 22 (2%) generously included. Hoisting the colours appears to have been good luck; countries with Union Jacks in their flags took a massive 115 medals, of which 40 were gold!

August 22, 2016 at 5:00 pm

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5,000,000 Signatures: Few Policy Changes

Parliament’s petition website is one year old today. The site, aimed at encouraging ordinary members of the British public to have a say in the workings of Parliament, has received 19,018 petitions since it’s inception. Of these 258 have reached the 10,000 signatures required to trigger a response from the government (1.36% ). Just 30 have reached the required 100,000 signatures or more to be debated in Parliament (after approval from the Petitions Committee, who blocked votes of no confidence in David Cameron and a debate to hold a 2016 General Election).

Of these 30, Guido Data can reveal that just four could be said arguably to have been followed by policies, of which only two can be said to have actually effected the government’s decision. Of these two are a petition to allow more refugees into the UK (this followed the shocking images of a drowned migrant child last summer, arguably receiving wider popular support), and another to hold a debate on a vote of no confidence in Jeremy Hunt – something the petition automatically achieved by gaining over 100,000 signatures. In other words, just 0.01% of all petitions lodged can actually be said to have affected the government’s policy. So much for direct democracy…

July 21, 2016 at 12:29 pm

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How Tough Was May on Immigration?

Theresa May has so far spent most of her campaign talking tough on immigration, including a threat to EU migrants currently living in the UK. Her team know this is her weak spot – in the next two months we will hear a lot about how May failed to deliver on immigration while in office. The above graph is a snapshot of all fourth quarter immigration estimates during her time as Home Secretary. An estimated 3,443,000 migrants entered the UK, with 1.2 million of those coming directly from EU states. Since 2012, EU immigration has increased every single year, with 2015 proving the highest year since records began in 2006. May’s campaign thinks a few “Go Home” vans are enough to secure her credentials as the strongest candidate on immigration…

July 8, 2016 at 1:46 pm

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Momentum Rejoice! Only 65% Think Corbyn Not Ready to be PM

Corbyn has always had a popularity problem within Labour. He was less popular than both Gordon and Red Ed when he took over in September, and scored an identical net dislike for both himself and his party as Tony Blair was quitting in 2007. Things may have got a little better…

According to Ipsos Mori, just 22% think Corbyn is ready to be PM – one point higher than Ed in 2015 – while 65% think he is not ready. While this figure would be crushing to any other candidate, for a beleaguered Labour Party this figure might show some hope. The figure ties with Ed Miliband’s second best ever score (his best being 63% thinking he was not ready). When asked whether Labour were ready to form the next government, Corbyn’s Labour trumped the former leader’s last score in November 2014, with a whopping 27% saying they were ready (and just 63% saying they weren’t). Of course, for context David Cameron’s lowest score in 2008 was 43% believing he wasn’t ready to be PM (43% also agreed he was ready), while at the same time 45% agreed the Conservative’s were ready to form a government. Corbyn is more divisive than Ed, but not more popular. Join the Tories if you want to vote for the next PM in their leadership contest…

May 19, 2016 at 5:11 pm

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MPs in Recess Half the Time Between Now and September

MPs think they’re worth the 10% pay rise handed to them last year – just one in ten of them have donated the extra cash to charity. So what are taxpayers getting in exchange for £74,000 a year – £47,500 over the national average? The Commons wasn’t sitting last week, and isn’t sitting this week either. Indeed, the House rises for all but 12.5 weeks between now and September 5. Westminster will be in recess for just shy of half the time between now and the end of the summer…

MPs will be required in Westminster for just 23.5 weeks until the end of the year, they are in recess for a massive 17.5 weeks this year. The UK’s statutory annual leave entitlement for workers is 5.6 weeks. Politicians will reply that they aren’t on holiday and claim they’re hard at work in their constituencies. The foreign dial tones when you ring their mobile phones suggest otherwise…

April 4, 2016 at 1:10 pm

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Labour Row Over Momentum Data Grab

Guido hears a row is breaking out over Labour members’ personal data, in the latest skirmish between the party’s HQ and Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign team. Jon Lansman, the boss of the Momentum Corbyn cheer-leading organisation, is having a barney with Labour’s legal team over his group’s apparent grab of members’ email addresses, telephone numbers and postcodes. As Guido noted last month, Momentum claims to be able to contact all the people who signed up to support him during the leadership contest. They say they are a stand alone company which is separate to the Labour Party, so any transfer of personal data from Corbyn’s leadership team would appear to be a breach of the Data Protection Act:

“individuals should generally be able to choose whether or not their personal data is disclosed to another organisation”

Labour MPs are furious and plan to write to the Information Commissioner to ask him to investigate if Momentum have broken the law. They point out that the maximum fine for serious breaches affecting thousands of people is a cool half a million quid…