UK News
Insights from the UK and beyond
What did Twitter make of the leaders’ debate?
History was made last night with Britain’s first televised political leaders’ debate, which was seen as an opportunity for Labour’s Gordon Brown, The Conservatives’ David Cameron and the Liberal Democrats’ Nick Clegg to stamp their authority on an election campaign that has so far failed to generate much excitement.
Outsider Clegg was judged the clear winner by almost every snap poll followinged the ITV broadcast. Today a ComRes/ITV opinion poll of over 4,000 people who watched the programme has the Tories on 36 percent, LibDems on 35 percent and Labour on 24 percent — a 14 percent jump for Clegg’s party.
The debate sparked lively discussion on Twitter.com (most of it via the hashtag #leadersdebate), and exclusive analysis for Reuters.co.uk showed a big spike in anti-Labour sentiment after the first of three debates.
U.S. marketing firm Crimson Hexagon archives all tweets about the election and analyses them for positive and negative sentiment.
Election TV debates or social media to have biggest impact?
There are at least two new factors in the coming election — the first-ever televised prime ministerial debates and the first full-on deployment of social media during a British election (Facebook was a year old, YouTube had just started and Twitter didn’t even exist back in 2005).
In a City University panel discussion on the ‘new media election’ 
on Tuesday, host Evan Davies of BBC’s Today programme framed the debate in terms of which would be most influential:Â The old, controlled media in the form of the three 90 minute TV debates to be broadcast by Sky, ITN and the BBC? Or the new, uncontrolled variety in the form of anyone with access to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube et al?
from Reuters Soccer Blog:
You can still watch Ukraine v England on TV … you just have to come to Croatia
A quick look around the blogosphere suggests that for many England fans the idea of watching the World Cup qualifier against Ukraine in front of a computer screen at the mercy of an ISP, or at a crammed cinema, sounds about as appealing as making the long trip to Dnipropetrovsk.
But do not despair, England fans, because there is an option for those of you determined to watch it on telly.
Nostalgia makes a comeback in TV ad-land
The recession is bringing back the strangest characters.  Rising from their graves like the zombies in Night of the Living Dead are people we thought had been buried decades ago.
The Milky Bar Kid is one, Persil mum is another and, inevitably, the Hovis bread delivery boy struggling up his cobbled hill while the brass band plays on.
Too many celebrity cooks spoiling the broth?
Sir David Attenborough has accused the BBCÂ of chasing ratings and overloading the schedules with too many makeover programmes and celebrity chefs.
Where, he asks, are the programmes about science for example like the long-defunct “Tomorrow’s World?”
“The Apprentice”: Jenny, the Deflector
Jenny does it again.
Despite showing a woeful lack of common sense with the doomed environmentally themed greetings card idea, and exhibiting a total lack of awareness during a sales pitch when she admitted no longer buying cards to be environmental, she still managed to deflect attention from herself in the boardroom by picking on the quietest woman in the room.
She did it in the second show when Shazia was kicked off, and attempted it against Sara in this week’s episode.
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The Wall
