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Brits search for a leader
April 15, 2010
Today, leaders of the three largest British parties took part in the U.K’s first live televised debate in the run up to the
May 6 general election
.
Alastair Stewart
of ITN hosted Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the Labour Party, Conservative Party leader David Cameron and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg as they discussed domestic affairs before a Manchester T.V. studio audience.
Nick Clegg
, his
Liberal Democrat
Party, and its manifesto generated many queries as people searched for
Lib Dems
and
Liberal Democrat manifesto 2010
. Searches for
David Cameron
and the
Conservatives
beat out the well-known incumbent Prime Minister
Gordon Brown
and
Labour
, but the two parties’ manifestos generated about the same number of searches.
Many Brits sought to watch the debate, searching for
ITV election debate
and
live political debate
, while others sought real-time polling information with queries such as
debate polls
,
leaders debate poll
and
who is winning the debate
.
Gordon Brown told David Cameron, “I'm grateful, by the way, David, for you putting up these posters about me and about crime and about everything else. You know, there's no newspaper editor done as much for me in the last two years, because my face is smiling on these posters, and I'm very grateful to you and Lord Ashcroft for funding that”, generating queries for
Gordon Brown poster
and
Lord Ashcroft
. David Cameron’s statement, “We’re going to get rid of some of these quangos” sent users scurrying to determine what a
quango
is. Nick Clegg’s repeated railing against renewing the
Trident missile
and David Cameron’s repeated railing against the
jobs tax
, a one percent increase in National Insurance contributions, were the other issues generating queries. Overwhelming these debate-related queries was the eruption of
Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano
and the closure of British air space.
During the three weeks, follow the run-up to the May 6 British general election by watching
debate highlights on YouTube
and searching web trends using
Google Insights for Search
.
Posted by Jeffrey D. Oldham, Software Engineer
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