Liz Truss has come out as a clear favourite among Twitter users for the Conservative Party leadership election, being spoken about more positively than her competitor Rishi Sunak or PM Boris Johnson.
Reach Data Unit analysis of Twitter showed that over one in eight (13%) of tweets sampled referred to Truss in a positive manner. In comparison, only one in 10 viewed Sunak similarly, and less than one in twenty for Johnson.
However, Liz Truss was far from beloved by Twitter users, with 45% of tweets about her being broadly negative in sentiment. Despite this, she still performed better than Rishi Sunak (50%) and Boris Johnson (55%). This suggests that Truss as Prime Minister is slightly more palatable to tweeters than the alternatives, despite still being unappealing.
The remainder of tweets for each was ‘neutral’. This is generally a reflection of subjects being discussed without any clear opinion, rather than a neutral stance being taken.
For each day in the past week, a sample of tweets was gathered for both leadership candidates and the Prime Minister. Verified accounts as well as replies and retweets were excluded. This guarantees that popular accounts such as politicians, pundits and press, as well as people responding to their tweets, wouldn’t skew the data.
The gathered tweets were then run through a sentiment analysis tool. This is an algorithm that can estimate the tone and sentiment of any given piece of text as broadly positive or negative. Our analysis was conducted using a tool specifically for analysing tweets. created by the Natural Language Processing research group at Cardiff University.
While this isn't an exact measurement of popular opinion, it still provides valuable insight into what the public has to say about the future prime minister, as well as the issues that voters care about.
Positive sentiment towards Truss largely came from recent polling boosts and endorsements from other MPs. Labour and SNP supporters who favoured fighting Truss in an election or independence referendum skewed this positivity slightly, perhaps making her less favourable among Conservative members.
On the other hand, many negative tweets highlighted a perceived lack of conviction, particularly her pro-EU past and recent u-turn on public sector pay cuts.
Perhaps the most divisive issue was Truss’ recent insulting remarks toward Nicola Sturgeon and Mark Drakeford, drawing a range of opinions from supportive unionists and outraged nationalists alike.
Praise for Sunak was more vague but generally centred around his communication and competency compared to Truss. However Sunak’s wealth and economic policy continue to hurt him, as well as his plans to reform the Prevent program, presenting him as authoritarian and out of touch. And whilst Truss is hardly seen as a Brexiteer’s dream, a perceived softness toward the EU and the betrayal of Johnson has made Sunak their nightmare.
As for Johnson, criticism predominantly focused around his heel-dragging departure from Downing St and a general untrustworthiness. Controversial plans to pack the House of Lords with Tory loyalists, and a poorly timed holiday at a time of economic stress, have also attracted significant anger over the past week.
What little positivity remained around the prime minister came from those unimpressed by leadership candidates, hoping to keep him in No.10.
Regardless of who comes out on top of the Conservative leadership battle, it’s clear that the future Prime Minister will have an uphill battle in gaining public approval.
