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from Left field:

Ryder Cup shows sportsmanship at its best

If golf is an island of civilisation in a world of sport awash with cheating then the Ryder Cup is the coconut-laden palm tree on top.

Golf's core values are honesty, self-regulation, absolute and unquestioning observance of even the most archaic rules and its great gift to the world - etiquette.

The same approach pretty much applies from the most humble municipal park player to when Jim Furyk is putting for 11.5 million dollars - making a mockery of the excuses for excess in other sports that it is all down to "pressure."

The Ryder Cup takes those golfing values and stirs in some even more uplifting ingredients.

When Colin Montgomerie and Corey Pavin sat side by side at a media conference at Celtic Manor on Monday there was an unquestioned and obvious respect for each other, for the competition, for those who had gone before and for the legacy each would leave.

Montgomerie explained that he had chosen not to use his "home captain's prerogative" of setting the course up to suit the European players, preferring instead to create an "honest course that would reward the best team".

Pavin refused to be drawn into discussing a particular role for Tiger Woods, insisting that when it comes to golf's most emotional competition, every man is equal.

Twitter users still agree with Nick

One the eve of the general election, our exclusive Twitter analysis of political sentiment shows that while the latest opinion polls point to a late rally by Gordon Brown’s Labour Party, users of the micro-blogging site still favour Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats over the other two main parties.

US market research firm Crimson Hexagon (on behalf of Reuters.co.uk) has been archiving all tweets on British politics since March 22 and analysing them for positive and negative sentiment. All parties have had their ups and downs, most notably in the aftermath of the first leaders’ debate (which led to a spike in support for the LibDems and the hashtag #iagreewithnick trending on Twitter) and Gordon Brown’s “bigot” gaffe in Rochdale,which gave us the highest percentage of negative tweets for any party during the campaign.

Just hours before the nation goes to the polls and with so many voters apparently still undecided, it’s worth taking a look at the latest numbers.

The graphic below shows positive tweets for each party up to May 4. The LibDems come out top on 20 percent, with pro-Labour sentiment on 12 percent and pro-Tory lagging behind on five percent.

The next graphic shows negative tweets for each party. Again the numbers favour the LibDems; negative sentiment for Clegg’s party is on just eight percent. Negative Labour tweets are at 16 percent. Meanwhile, despite a lead in the opinion polls, David Cameron’s Tories are the least popular on 25 percent. The highest percentage of tweets we have seen (a massive 42 percent) occurred when Gordon Brown called pensioner Gillian Duffy a “bigoted woman”.

Twitter users give their verdict on final leaders’ debate

The snap polls say Tory leader David Cameron was the victor of last night’s final leaders’ debate, but what did users of micro-blogging site Twitter make of the three main prime ministerial candidates?

Analysis of political tweets by research firm Crimson Hexagon for Reuters.co.uk shows a spike in positive LibDem tweets, up to 22 percent from 14 percent the previous day. Pro-Labour sentiment fell four points to 8 percent, while pro-Tory tweets improved only slightly from 3 percent to 4 percent, despite the widely-held view that Cameron out-performed his two rivals last night.

Negative tweets for Gordon Brown’s Labour Party hit a high (since we began archiving and analysing tweets on March 22) of 42 percent after the PM called an elderly voter in Rochdale a “bigoted woman.” That number was always going to come down yesterday and, as the next graphic shows, it fell to 30 percent. Anti-Tory tweets went up three points from 15 percent to 18 percent, while anti-LibDem sentiment remained low, at just 8 percent.

The final graphic shows the net performance on Twitter of all three parties since March 22. Overall, it sums up the fortunes of each party throughout the campaign rather nicely.

Twitter users turn on Brown after “bigot” gaffe

We’re still waiting to find out if Gordon Brown’s gaffe in Rochdale yesterday (if you missed it, he called a 66-year-old, lifelong Labour voter a “bigoted woman”) does serious damage to his party’s performance in the opinion polls. What is certain is that it was the first serious blunder of the election campaign and the shockwaves were immediately visible on micro-blogging site Twitter.

Throughout the election run-in U.S. research firm Crimson Hexagon has been conducting exlusive research for Reuters.co.uk — archiving all UK political tweets and analysing them for positive and negative sentiment. The three main parties have each experienced ups and downs throughout the campaign. Not surprisingly, we saw a spike in positive Liberal Democrat tweets  following Nick Clegg’s impressive performance during the first leaders’ debate, while positive sentiment towards David Cameron’s Conservatives has dwindled since we started analysing tweets on March 22.

But we have seen nothing as dramatic as the surge in anti-Labour sentiment which followed Brown’s confrontation with pensioner Gillian Duffy yesterday.

The graphic below shows anti-Labour tweets rising to 42 percent, up from 15 percent the previous day. Anti-Tory tweets fell from 23 percent to 14 percent, while negative LibDem tweets fell from 9 percent to 5 percent.

Twitter user @sara_sands posted: “Just when you think Gordon Brown couldn’t sink any lower, he insults an elderly lady. What a disgrace.”

After the PM went back to Duffy’s house to apologise in person, @greensdiary said: “Dear Gordon Brown: why do you not process the ability to apologise properly?” Another user, @Clairabell, simply said: “Gordon Brown – fail.”

How did the party leaders fare on Twitter?

There was no undisputed winner, according to the snap polls which followed the second leaders’ debate in Bristol last night. The instant polls were split on who had won, with three saying LibDem leader Nick Clegg was the victor and another two placing the Conservatives’ David Cameron in first place.

“The three main party leaders were unable to land a knockout punch on their rivals,” said Reuters correspondent Peter Griffiths, reporting from Bristol yesterday.

Some newspapers claim Cameron’s performance — viewed as an improvement on last week — may have put the brakes on the surge in LibDem support which followed Clegg’s resounding victory in the first debate, but exclusive analysis for Reuters.co.uk shows, on Twitter at least, the Clegg bandwagon rolls on.

Market research company Crimson Hexagon has been commissioned by Thomson Reuters to archive all tweets about UK politics and analyse them for positive and negative sentiment.

The latest statistics, which include all tweets sent before, during and after yesterday’s debate, show support for Clegg’s LibDems continuing to grow at the expense of the other two leaders.

This first graphic below shows how positive tweets were distributed among the three main political parties. Pro-LibDem sentiment rocketed to 32 percent from 19 percent the day before. Positive Tory tweets fell to 5 percent while support for Labour fell one point to 7 percent.

Twitter learns to love the LibDems

Our exclusive analysis of  political sentiment expressed on Twitter.com shows a surge in pro-LibDem tweets since Nick Clegg’s successful performance in the leaders’ debate on Thursday evening — mirroring the huge swing towards the party in the opinion polls.

U.S. marketing firm Crimson Hexagon is archiving all political tweets throughout the election for Reuters.co.uk and analysing them for positive and negative sentiment. The latest statistics show a dramatic spike in positive LibDem sentiment, sparked by Clegg’s universally praised performance during the televised debate, the first of its kind in British politics.

The graphic below shows 23 percent of tweets were pro-LibDem today (down 1 percent on yesterday). Prior to the leaders’ debate the highest percentage of positive tweets for any party was 16 percent.

One Twitter user, @eloquentalien, posted: “I watched the UK Prime Minesterial Debate, and while watching it I was thinking, Hmm, Nick Clegg is coming off as the best of the three…”

Pro-Labour sentiment is at 9 percent (down two points) while support for the Conservatives on Twitter is at an all-time low of 6 percent (down from 15 percent on March 22, the day we began the research).

“A three way split in government illustrate that the Tories and Labour can no longer get away with violating election promises,” said @amiras80.

Was it the worm wot won it?

My colleague Ross Chainey has blogged about how Nick Clegg emerged as the winner on most measures from last night’s TV debate. But there’s another battle going on in this election — that between traditional broadcast and new-fangled social media.

“In real terms last night was the triumph of broadcast media over digital media,” the head of digital at one of the parties told me this morning.

That’s perhaps unsurprising given that the event was the dream broadcast event. But there’s a more nuanced view of the new media landscape — one that sees  important interplays between the worlds of traditional and social media. It’s argued that this is the fundamental insight that the Obama campaign used to such devastating effect in 2008. So, with this in mind, how well did social and broadcast media play together last night?

There was a lot of focus on Twitter. The aggregation and analytics service TweetMinster says there were 184,396 tweets from 36,483 tweeters with an average of 29 a second during the debate. That’s three times the number involved  during the Newsnight interview with  British National Party leader Nick Griffin earlier this year.

But that pales into insignificance against a peak-time TV audience of 9.9 million.  TweetMinster puts the size of the political Twittersphere at about 50,000. Those  hoping for a surge in new entrants to political tweeting were probably disappointed last night.

One thing I thought was interesting was how quickly ‘I agree with Nick’ emerged as a trending topic on Twitter as tweeters noted how David Cameron and Gordon Brown used the same language in referring to the Liberal Democrat leader.

Following the Twitter stream reminded me of how hard it was to navigate the #iranelection hashtag last summer when the Iranian protests started — it was impossible to keep up. The Labour Party, which has put more into Twitter than the other parties, created a filtered feed of tweets for its own homepage to help followers sort the wheat from the chaff.

from The Great Debate UK:

TweetTracker shows Nick Clegg most liked

- Paul Afshar is senior account manager at public relations firm Edelman. The opinions expressed are his own. -

A famous German writer once said "personality is everything", which could not ring truer for the UK's General Election, and particularly "likeability" on social media.

With the public, to lesser and greater extents, unbothered by detail of party manifesto commitments, the sturdy Scottishness of Gordon Brown vs. the persuasive tones of David Cameron and, arguably Nick Clegg, act as barometers of voters' intentions better than their understanding of National Insurance contributions.

Should the party leaders be concerned about their likeability on social media?

Yes, according to Edelman's TweetTracker tool. On Twitter, with its 2.5 million UK users, personality is everything.

TweetTracker comprehensively assesses personality ratings of the three main party leaders - David Cameron, Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg - on Twitter, giving them an "approval/ disapproval" score, like those used in U.S. Presidential campaigns.

Taking Twitter’s political temperature

Britain’s first live television debates between the leaders of the three mainstream political parties are not the only new feature to add spice to the upcoming general election, which Prime Minister Gordon Brown today announced will be held on May 6.

The 2010 vote is also the first time politicians and their strategy teams have had to factor in the micro-blogging site Twitter.com. The social media tool, which did not exist at the time of the last election in 2005, now has over 75 million users who between them sent four billion tweets in the first quarter of 2010.

It is also home to a vibrant — and often vitriolic — political community that is certain to go into overdrive in the run-up to polling day and beyond.

But whose side are they on?

To answer this question, Reuters commissioned market research company Crimson Hexagon to conduct a detailed assessment of opinions expressed by the UK public about the political parties on Twitter.

Archiving all tweets related to the parties and their leading figures and then analysing them for positive and negative sentiment (while simultaneously filtering out any tweets which expressed no opinion), the research team was able to take the political temperature of British Twitter users.

The results make for fascinating reading. The first chart, below, shows the percentage of positive tweets for Labour, Conservatives, Lib Dems and other parties between March 22 and April 5 . The  Conservative Party scores slightly better than its rivals; over the entire period 13 percent of tweets were pro-Tory, compared with 10 percent  pro-Labour, 8 percent pro-Lib Dems and 8 percent for other parties.

The Twitter election?

All the main parties are putting time into Twitter in the run-up to the  election with the Conservatives saying it’s  taking up  a fifth of the capacity of their digital campaign team. If the significance of a new medium is measured by the number of political gaffes it transmits then Twitter can lay claim to having arrived following David Cameron’s outburst on Absolute Radio last summer, last month’s ‘scumgate’ episode involving Labour MP David Wright and the hacking of the Twitter accounts of politicians including Energy Secretary Ed Miliband.

Twitter is very much centred on personalities and when BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson declared earlier this month that the service had helped turn Sarah Brown into one of the most influential figures in British politics via a  following of more than 1.1 million for the Prime Minister’s wife  it underlined how disruptive micro-blogging might be.

But Twitter is only one of a number of social networks  being used in campaigning. There’s a colourful patchwork of online media including blogs, spoof sites, YouTube, Facebook and the parties’ own social networking sites. So I asked Alberto Nardelli, one of the co-founders of the political monitoring service Tweetminster, for his assessment of the role Twitter will play:

@albertonardelli: People and not social media will win the election, yet tools like Twitter can play a key role in mobilising, engaging and communicating with people. I think that Twitter will play a significant role in the election alongside other “new elements”, such as the TV debates, Facebook, YouTube etc. Specifically, I believe Twitter will play an interesting role in terms of its impact on the news agenda, party morale and in terms of framing topics – the perception that people have of key issues.

@markjones: What differences do you see between the parties in the way they are using Twitter?

@albertonardelli: As candidates are using Twitter differently it’s hard to define use by party – some candidates only broadcast, others engage, many use it to liaise with the media and as a platform for rebuttal. In general terms though, the Conservatives tend to be more effective in distributing the party line cohesively with activity driven mainly by CCHQ staff and its lines (NB: this doesn’t necessarily mean that such an approach is orchestrated), while Labour tends to be more “passionate” at a grassroots level with Twitter activity led by its candidates. The Liberal Democrats are somewhere between the two approaches. All three parties are fairly active in criticising each other.