Tweetminster

Over one million people follow MPs on Twitter

1,224,902 people follow MPs on Twitter.

The most followed party (with the most followed MPs) is the Conservatives whose MPs are followed by 637,338 people. Labour follows with 576,304 people, and the Liberal Democrats with 200,176 people.

These are all unique figures/followers - total number of people (cleansed of duplicates). A simple sum of all MPs’ followers, not excluding duplicates, adds up to 3,628,982.

The 10 most followed MPs on Twitter:

@David_Cameron 280916 followers

@Ed_Miliband 204818

@WilliamJHague 138369

@georgegalloway 122764

@tom_watson 119180

@nick_clegg 106194

@edballsmp 81113

@grantshapps 64988

@CarolineLucas 55017

@ChukaUmunna 49894

*@Dmiliband (125,972) is excluded from the list.

All data was gathered on Thursday 11 April.

A new electionista.com

Last week we announced V2 of electionista pro. Today, we’re delighted to release the latest update of electionista.com:

- a beautiful new interface

- photos and videos most shared by politicians and political media around the world

- a markets channel (simply type markets in the search bar) to see the latest relevant tweets and most shared content by financial experts and influencers around the world.

New channels on electionista pro

Last week we released V2 of electionista pro. Today we rolled out two new channels:

1) Markets - following the financial community globally on Twitter and filtering their tweets by over 3000 queries covering all equities, commodities, bonds, currencies and local markets.

2) UK Local - following all local councillors, local authorities and local and regional press in the UK. 

Both channels of course encompass the full suite of electionista pro functionality, including the ability to search within a channel, find the most shared links, the most retweeted tweets around queries, and lots more.

Introducing electionista pro V2

We’re delighted to announce the release of V2 of electionista pro.

electionista is the only service in the world that follows politics, elections and political trends on Twitter globally, in over 100 countries and more than 50 languages. All the world’s politicians, governments, media and top commentators on one platform. 

The latest version includes:

- a beautiful new tabbed interface for 1) Tweets, 2) Content and 3) Data. When you search for a country, within a country or globally across all countries, relevant tweets, the most shared content and data - most Retweeted posts, most mentioned and most active users, trending topics and volume of conversations - relating to your search query are each organised in a dedicated page.

The V2 interface also enhances user experience on mobile and tablet devices, and integrates infinite scroll in the tweets page.

- most shared photos and videos by politicians, governments and political journalists around the world.

- the ability to download data by various time intervals - hour, day, week, month.

And, of course all the existing features are still there, http://electionista.com/about it’s just that now we’re not only making following politics globally simple, but more beautiful.

If you’re an electionista pro user the new version will be there next time you log in (you may need to refresh your cache). If you would like to find out more about the service and subscribing drop us an email at info [at] electionista dot com or tweet us @electionista.

A Guide to #Italy2013 Coalitions on Twitter

By Saturday January 13 coalitions, manifestos and coalitions need to be finalised ahead of Italy’s general election (February 24-25).

Here is a brief guide to the coalitions’ (as they currently stand) Twitter’s presence:

Centre-left

Coalition leader: @pbersani

Parties/lists: @pdnetwork, @sinistraelib, @CentroDemDirLib, @PartSocialista 

Party/list leaders: @NichiVendola, @NenciniPsi

Centre-right

Coalition leader: Silvio Berlusconi (not on Twitter, but @forzasilvioit is his “personal network”)

Parties/Lists: @ilpdl, @LegaNord2_0, @FratellidItaIia, @Lista3L

Party/list leaders: @angealfa, @maroni_leganord, @GiorgiaMeloni, @Storace, @g_tremonti, @Ignazio_LaRussa

Centre

Coalition leader:  @SenatoreMonti

Parties/Lists: @scelta_civica, @udctw, @_futuroeliberta

Party/list leaders: @gianfranco_fini, @Pierferdinando

Rivoluzione Civile

Coalition leader: @AntonioIngroia

Parties/lists: @MovArancione, @rivcivile, @verditalia

Party/list leaders: @Idvstaff, @AngeloBonelli1

Others

Coalition leaders: @OGiannino, @beppe_grillo

Parties/Lists: @Mov5Stelle, @Fare2013, @Radicali

All the above accounts can also be found in one Twitter List at https://twitter.com/electionista/italycoalitions

If you’re aware of anyone missing on the list - tweet us @electionista

On electionista Italy, in addition to all coalitions, parties and leaders, you can follow Italian MPs, candidates, political journalists, media and key commentators.

Hashtags to follow the election campaign: #Italy2013, #ItalyVote, #Italy, #elezioni2013.

How UK MPs Tweeted in 2012?

Here is our 2012 round up of UK MPs’ activity on Twitter.

There are now 414 MPs on Twitter. You can find and follow the full list here and our lists page also includes lists by party. 

10 Most Followed MPs on Twitter:

@David_Cameron - 192458 followers

@Ed_Miliband - 182397

@WilliamJHague - 119159

@DMiliband - 109136

@tom_watson - 108386

@georgegalloway - 101996

@nick_clegg - 98033

@edballsmp - 70417

@grantshapps - 60088

@CarolineLucas - 49364

10 Most Active MPs on Twitter (that tweeted the most during 2012):

@KarlTurnerMP - 12956 tweets

@AngusMacNeilMP - 12256

@jreedmp - 10695

@julianhuppert - 10145

@timfarron - 8432

@stellacreasy - 8291

@tom_watson - 7687

@TomHarrisMP - 7486

@GregMulholland1 - 6516

@KerryMP - 6506

She didn’t end 2012 as an MP, but it’s worth mentioning that @LouiseMensch would have made the top 10 with her 7689 tweets.

The 10 topics MPs most tweeted about:

Work - 5379 tweets

Tax - 5124

NHS - 4993

David Cameron - 4742

Schools - 4539

Police - 4154

Homes - 3831

BBC - 3635

Family - 2848

Cuts - 2832

For those wondering, the EU was mentioned 2157 times.

The 10 MPs most mentioned in the tweets of UK media and journalists:

@tom_watson - 1433 mentions

@edballsmp - 874

@NadineDorriesMP - 836

@Ed_Miliband - 821

@ChrisBryantMP - 538

@WilliamJHague - 536

@David_Cameron - 533

@stellacreasy - 491

@TomHarrisMP - 412

@theresecoffey - 338

And with that we wish you all a wonderful Christmas and New Year!

Announcing electionista for Windows 8

Following on from the great reception for our global election dashboard electionista.com we’ve launched the electionista app for Windows 8.  It’s built for laptops, the new generation of Win8 phones and, of course, the new Surface tablet and all touch screen Windows 8 Devices.

electionista is unique because it’s the only app that tracks every politician and all political media on Twitter globally.  That means the live tweets, trending news stories and data showing the trends, most active and most mentioned political Twitter accounts in the world, country by country.  The app automatically updates when it launches to show you the next upcoming election on the global calendar (right now it’s Slovenia) and features an interactive calendar to show you when and where people are choosing their next government.  

Developing for Windows 8 worked well for Tweetminster - “Our systems are built around generating JSON feeds, so integrating them into apps is mostly an interactive design process, i.e. working out how to make the interface work on multiple touch-enabled devices and deliver the right functionality for news surfing. The app has got a lot of cool new options for sharing and searching the content which are unique to Windows 8 devices, so we’re really pleased with the results - it’s smooth and transparent, there’s nothing to get in the way of enjoying the content, which is our goal when building apps.” (Andrew Walker, Chief Innovation Officer).

The electionista app is the easy way for news hungry political animals to get the latest in world politics delivered directly to their laptop, phone and tablet, with latest news integrating straight into their home screen.  Get it free from the Windows Store here.

How the Middle East Tweets

Here is our latest visualisation for Portland Communications - it maps the most connected political Twitter users in the Middle East. You can read more about it, and find visuals per country over at the Portland blog.

The electionista Guide to the US Election

Here is electionista’s brief guide to the US presidential election.

Over 100 million Americans will vote. Polls close at different times across the country with Kentucky and Indiana the first to close at 2300 GMT and Alaska the last at 0500 GMT (on Wednesday).

Poll closing times in key states:

Virgina 0000 GMT

North Carolina 0030 GMT

Ohio 0030 GMT 

Florida 0100 GMT 

New Hampshire 0100 GMT 

Pennsylvania 0100 GMT

Colorado 0200 GMT 

Wisconsin 0200 GMT

Iowa 0300 GMT 

Nevada 0300 GMT 

Each state is called some time after the polls close, and depending on how close the results are, a winning candidate is expected to emerge between 0300 and 0700 GMT (on Wednesday).

Polls.

There are 538 electoral college votes up for grabs, with at least 270 needed to win.

Average of national polls: 

TPM: Obama 48.9%, Romney 47.9% 

RealClearPolitics: Obama 48.8%, Romney 48.1%

Averages in key swing states (RCP data):

Virginia (13 electoral votes) - Obama: +0.3

North Carolina (15) - Romney: +3

Ohio (18) - Obama: +2.8

Florida (29) - Romney: +1.8 

New Hampshire (4) - Obama: +2 

Pennsylvania (20) - Obama: +3.9

Colorado (9) - Obama: +0.6

Wisconsin (10) - Obama: +4.2

Iowa (6) - Obama: +3

Nevada (6) - Obama: +2.8

Based on these, the electoral college tally would be: Obama 303, Romney 235 

FiveThirtyEight forecasts in-line with these averages handing Obama 315.2, Romney 222.8; Obama chance of winning 92%, Romney chance of winning 8% 

Road to the White House - likely combinations.

There are 512 possible paths to the White House, yet these are the most likely combinations:

If Romney doesn’t win Ohio, he would need Colorado, Florida, Virginia, Wisconsin AND Iowa or New Hampshire. If Romney wins Ohio, he would need Florida, Virginia and one other swing state. 

If Obama wins Florida, he would likely be past the needed 270 mark. If he doesn’t win Florida, the President would need Ohio AND Virginia or Wisconsin or Colorado or Iowa and New Hampshire.

These combinations visualised.

To follow the election and results.

Hashtag: #election2012

On electionista U.S. you can follow all the Tweets of media, key commentators, reporters across the country and from the campaigns.

@electionista will be tweeting results throughout the night.

If you want to follow the election in languages other than English, electionista is working with the BBC World Service on their coverage in Persian, Russian and Arabic.

A brief guide to elections in Georgia

On October 1, Georgia heads to the polls to elect a new parliament. Here is @electionista’s brief guide to following the election. 

Number of registered voters: 3,613,851 - the highest in 20 years.

The Georgian parliament has 150 members elected for a four-year term using a mixed system - 73 MPs are elected via a majoritarian system, 77 seats are allocated proportionately. There is a 5% threshold to enter parliament.

A new constitution - these will be the first parliamentary elections held in Georgia since the country adopted a new constitution which shifts significant executive powers from the President to the Prime Minister. A candidate for PM will be named by the party that wins the election, and the PM-designate will require the support of at least 76 MPs in order to form a government. More on the constitutional changes can be found here. These new provisions will go into effect following the presidential election in October 2013.

The election campaign has been marred with controversies, abuses in prisons and an investigation into links between opposition leaders and criminal organisations have hit both ruling party and opposition, reflecting a country divided between supporters of pro-western President Saakashvili and opposition billionaire Ivanishvili and the possibility of renewed links with Russia. 

You can find out more about Georgia’s voting system and parties here. 

Despite these divisions, the ruling United National Movement holds a double-digit lead in recent polls. 

Hashtags to follow the election on Twitter: #Georgia and #gvote - we will post more hashtags as they emerge on election day.

We will be posting main events and results on Twitter via @electionista and you can follow all the relevant Tweets from candidates and local media, and news on our Georgia page.