Well, that’s it. 92 minutes of the first ever televised leader debate, and researchers from 63336 were on hand to produce answers to questions that the British public has always wanted to know. Within minutes of the debate ending, we’d worked out that Clegg used his hands the most (11min 28s in total), Cameron smiled the most (97 times) and Brown was the quickest off the mark when answering questions (0.2s).
Here’s some of the Q&A we’ve produced in the 63336 Alternative Report, which you can download for free here (pdf format).
Q. Which party leader used their hands the most in the first debate?
A. Nick Clegg from the Liberal Democrats used his hands for a total of 11 min 28 sec, compared to just 9 min 19 sec for Brown and Cameron’s 9 min 50 sec.
Q. Which party leader was the biggest smiler?
A. David Cameron was the biggest smiler by far – smiling 3 times as much as Gordon Brown (34 smiles) and Nick Clegg (31 smiles). He smiled 97 times in total.
Q. Which party leader was quickest off the mark?
A. Gordon Brown on the final question, question 8, who barely let Clegg finish before beginning his response in approximately 0.2 seconds.
Q. What were the top buzzwords?
A. During the debate, the most top 5 repeated words were tax (40), police (38), schools (36), the economy (33) and education (32). The budget deficit was only mentioned 13 times.
Q. Who told the best jokes during the first leaders debate?
A. Gordon Brown cracked the best jokes during the debate. His finest was when he remarked that Cameron couldn’t airbrush his policies like he’d airbrushed his posters.
Q. Which party leader positioned themselves as more of a personality?
A. Nick Clegg spoke of himself as an individual 47% of the time, compared to David Cameron doing so 37% of the time & Gordon Brown 34% of the time.
To see the full press release about the 63336 Alternative Report, and for contact details for more information, please go here. The next Leaders’ Debate takes place on Thursday 23 April, from 8.30pm. Follow @the63336 on twitter for live statistics, and check back on this blog for the next full report.
Thanks for your tweets last night, it was the funniest guide to the election debate!
When the next debate is on, can you have a look at foot movement? I’ve always had a thing for feet. What colour shoes are they wearing, do they stand on left or right? do they tip their heels? (are they wearing heels!). Love the Paul Merton quote btw…xx
Hi June,
I doubt VERY much they’ll be wearing heels. They were all shod in black sensible shoes last night, but Brown had the niftiest foot moves with occasional leans to the right, on his right foot. We’ll see what we can do for next time.