Under The Radar – 08 October

Brett Jordan for Unsplash

This week, we discuss:

1. ScotRail Plan Chaotic Strikes During COP26

2. Facebook Under Fire

3. Mounting Military Tensions Between China and Taiwan

ScotRail Plan Chaotic Strikes During COP26

What Happened?

ScotRail engineers are planning to strike during the Glasgow climate summit. A twenty-four-hour stoppage is planned for the 1st and 2nd of November, with global leaders and campaigners due to gather in Scotland from October 31st. 

What does it mean?

Unions claim that they have been left with no choice after ScotRail management – operated by the private Dutch transport company Abellio – failed to make a ‘meaningful pay offer’, with 78% of members voting in favour of strike action. 

Rail services across Scotland have already faced disruption for months due to industrial action and planned cuts. The strikes would undoubtedly bring chaos to Scottish transport, at a time when infrastructure will be under pressure with an estimated 30,000 delegates from around the world flocking to Glasgow for COP26.

The unions believe they have been “spun out and cynically used” during months of negotiations in an effort to delay strike action until after the conference. Meanwhile, the Scottish Government have said they are hopeful that an “appropriate and fair pay increase” could be agreed, and that they were actively encouraging unions and management to seek a resolution.

Whilst political opponents are attempting to force the SNP’s hand by painting the strikes as catastrophic for Scotland’s reputation on the international stage, it’s more disastrous for Boris Johnson, who has long earmarked COP26 as an opportunity to showcase Britain as a global leader on climate change. 

This is a reminder for Johnson that you reap what you sow – his government is pushing for a return to the office, which naturally leads to busier train services. Meanwhile, he used his conference speech to urge businesses to transform Britain into a high-wage economy – under this political backdrop, it’s no wonder transport workers are fighting for a fairer wage.  

Facebook Under Fire

What happened? On Tuesday, Frances Haugen, a whistleblower, testified before the Senate subcommittee on Consumer Protection. The former Facebook employee’s much-anticipated testimony painted a bleak picture of a company with little regard for its capacity to harm.

What does this mean? During the hearing, Haugen provided evidence that Facebook is presently unwilling to make its platform safer due to the profits it continues to generate from its current model of user engagement. As such, prior to her testimony, Haugen reportedly filed at least eight whistleblower complaints alleging that the social media giant is hiding research about its shortcomings whilst telling Senators that Facebook had also done too little to prevent violence arising from its platform. Though Facebook is attempting to publicly hide its shortcomings, their existence has already been crystalised in the eyes of legislators and the public alike. Senators from both parties were excoriating in their criticism of the company and its founder, Mark Zuckerberg. Hours after Haugen’s testimony, he personally refuted her in a Facebook post, writing that the accusations were at odds with Facebook’s mission.  Unfortunately for Zuckerberg, it is now widely acknowledged that Facebook’s technology encourages some of our worst tendencies as a species – whether that be our insecurities or our addictive natures, such encouragement is considerable in both its scope and impact. Whilst our increasing inability to detach ourselves from the world around us is in fact becoming a damaging aspect of human nature, this does not render Facebook innocent. And, if the rising tide of bipartisan opposition to Facebook is anything to go by, America’s legislators won’t be letting them forget that any time soon.

Mounting Military Tensions Between China and Taiwan

What happened?

Chiu Kuo-cheng, Taiwan’s defence minister, along with Tsai Ing-wen, the President, have warned the international community that China will be capable of invading Taiwanese territory by 2025. Chiu has claimed that tensions with Beijing are at their worst in forty years since China has sent 150 warplanes to the Taiwanese air defence zone since last Friday. What does it mean?

Western foreign policymakers find themselves in a catch-22. For one, Taiwan is a Western-style democracy with liberal values that should be nurtured and defended. However, China has a strong historic claim to the territory, and the US has been largely supportive of this claim in line with its longstanding One China policy – so long as any conflict is resolved peacefully.  Because Taiwan is still not officially recognised by many states around the world, it has been forced to ‘think asymmetrically’ in terms of its political and economic strategies. Consequently, the country has become an important democracy and global supplier with many trading ties around the globe.  But the final word on what a Chinese invasion would mean is best left with the Taiwanese president: “Should this line be broken by force, the consequences would disrupt international trade and destabilise the entire western Pacific. In other words, a failure to defend Taiwan would not only be catastrophic for the Taiwanese; it would overturn a security architecture that has allowed for peace and extraordinary economic development in the region for seven decades.”

This Week’s Must Reads

1. ‘The BBC needs to get much better at defending itself’ by David Hare for The Guardian

2. ‘As China stumbles, the west must ask: what if its rise is inevitable?’ by Jeremy Cliffe for The New Statesman

3. ‘Voters want more from business than profits’ by James Kirkup for The Times

4. ‘”A nation of property hoarders”: how Right to Buy transformed UK housing’ by Lynsey Hanley for The Financial Times

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A Tale of Two Speeches

Credit: Andrew Parsons / 10 Downing Stre

As the Conservative Party Conference concluded, the data team at Trafalgar Strategy looked back at the Prime Minister and Chancellor’s keynote speeches, by tracking the Twitter sentiment expressed during both speeches to understand what Twitter users either liked or disliked. The results are visualised below.

Each graph represents a minute-by-minute average sentiment score for each speech. Where greater than zero equals positive and less than zero equals negative. As a result, at any given minute, you can see the average sentiment expressed through/in tweets at any given moment of the respective speeches.

As Rishi Sunak stepped up, the reaction on Twitter was relatively moderate. As a result, the average sentiment jumps around, with some users disparaging the Chancellor over fuel shortages and tax hikes and others discussing the additional £500m for COVID job support programmes. The same is not true for the Prime Minister, however, as Twitter sentiment was initially negative – driven by criticism of the Government’s COVID handling and the ongoing fuel crisis.

By the time each speech kicked off, the volume of tweets slowly increased, with the average sentiment for Rishi Sunak settling around neutral – where it remained for the majority of the speech. In contrast, Boris Johnson’s sentiment remained negative, bar one instance of positive sentiment linked to a series of positive tweets talking up the Government’s COVID record around vaccination rates.

When looking at the reaction to Rishi Sunak’s speech, the one significant reaction – on Twitter at least – appears to be in relation to his fiscal responsibility comments at the outset. Initially, Twitter users reacted negatively to this, disparaging the Chancellor’s own wealth and mocking what they perceived to be as a play for the Conservative party leadership. Although the data then showed an immediate jump in sentiment, this was solely driven by reporting related to the applause the Chancellor received at conference and was not a positive endorsement of his message.

Quickly, Twitter returned to disparaging the Chancellor, as negative sentiment remained strong for several minutes. Throughout this period, the ire of Twitter users jumped around a little, with some users calling out the Chancellor’s hypocrisy, given the state of the national debt. Others were angry at tax hikes or simply parroting Labour’s broken promises line.

When we looked at the engagement around tweets during this period, to see where the broader Twitter consensus sat with regards to the Chancellor, unsurprisingly it was overwhelmingly against him. Specifically, we looked at the four tweets during this period that received significant engagement. Of the four, one supported the chancellor, one simply reported on his comments, one mocked him and the other was a visceral attack on conservative values that managed to mention COVID deaths and child poverty. It was the visceral attack that generated the most positive engagement suggesting.

Unfortunately for the Prime Minister, what was already a broadly negative reaction took a serious nosedive around 11:43. Overwhelmingly, this negative reaction was driven by people reacting to his comments around fiscal responsibility and tackling the social care crisis.

In relation to social care, the biggest driver of negativity during this period, Twitter users quickly accused the Prime Minister of lying – a theme that emerged in the reaction to his speech – with users specifically highlighting the impact of Brexit and attacking the Prime Minister’s record on building hospitals. Users criticising his comments around fiscal responsibility predominantly accused the Prime Minister of hypocrisy, focusing on the Conservative party’s decade in government and mounting debt.

Although there is a big jump in positive sentiment around 11:46, this is driven by his ‘Jon Bon Govi’ joke and was not an endorsement of his swipe against Corbyn or previous Conservative administrations. Unhelpfully for Boris, the immediate drop in sentiment can also partly be attributed to this joke, which angered as many as it pleased. Other negative sentiment can be linked to his comments around levelling up as users were not convinced in the Prime minister’s promises or ability to deliver meaningful change.

Sentiment then remains constantly low as users continued to reflect on his speech. Hashtags such as ‘#ToryScum’, ‘#BorisLies’, ‘#JohnsonMustGo’ or ‘#ToryLies’ begin to spread with almost everything the Prime Minster saying being met by angry and vocal twitter activists who at one point, accuse him of engaging in the culture war following his comments around social justice.

The small peaks in positive sentiment in the second half of the Prime Ministers speech are attributed to his delivery and not specific policy announcements. A small but vocal minority of Twitter users appreciating and enjoying the performance, commenting on the Prime Ministers whit, enthusiasm and passion. Furthermore, although not many, we do find a minority of users who question whether Sir Kier Starmer stands a chance against Boris at a general election.

Finally, when we looked at engagement, not a single positive tweet supporting the Prime Minister had any significant engagement. Overwhelmingly tweets that got retweets, likes or comments did so because they criticised not supported him, demonstrating the extent to which Twitter is currently a majority left-leaning platform.

When looking at the reaction to both speeches, it is clear that the palpable discontent with Boris Johnson supersedes the negative sentiment held towards Rishi Sunak – reinforcing the Chancellor’s rise in stature amongst the wider public.

#Data #Politics #SocialMedia

Twitter Sentiment Around the Tory Party Conference

With the Conservative Party conference almost wrapped up, the data team at Trafalgar Strategy took a look back at the sentiment expressed on Twitter towards Cabinet Ministers.

First off, the Prime Minister overwhelmingly dominated the Twitter-sphere appearing in over half of all sampled tweets (410k) – yet the Home Secretary Priti Patel pipped the Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak into the second place in terms of unique mentions.

Alongside the Chancellor, we found Lord Frost, the Foreign Secretary Elizabeth Truss and the Health Secretary Sajid Javid all appearing prominently in the Twitter conversation around Conference.

When we looked at the sentiment around each minister, unsurprisingly, The Prime Minister and Home secretary received short shrift from the Twitterati. If the Prime Minister’s parody ‘Build Back’ videos were an attempt to try and turn the tide – it appears to have partially worked – with more users liking than criticising the videos.

Lord Frost – who as Chief Brexit negotiator is now kryptonite to Remainers – received a similar negative reaction on Twitter to the Prime Minister. However, the Chancellor, Foreign Secretary and Health Secretary benefited from a more measured response – in part because they weren’t so prominent in the debate. Combined, all three appear in just over 15% of tweets.

Sentiment alone tells only half the story – and when engagement is factored in, the tweets driving engagement around each minister appear broadly negative for almost all ministers.

#Data #Politics #SocialMedia