Monday, June 04, 2007

Shadow Cabinet Media Tarts List for May

Each month I track the number of media mentions for each member of the Shadow Cabinet through Lexis Nexis with the help of Julian Nicholson. Obviously you cannot judge the performance of someone purely on the number of press mentions they get, but it is an increasingly big part of any politician's job.


1 (-) David Cameron 2492
2 (+9) David Willetts 360
3 (-1) David Davis 330
4 (-1) William Hague 309
5 (-1) George Osborne 247
6 (-) Andrew Lansley 121
7= (+7) Alan Duncan 80
7= (-) Chris Grayling 80
9 (-) Francis Maude 60
10 (+7) Oliver Letwin 59
11 (+5) David Mundell 55
12 (-) Hugo Swire 51
13= (-8) Liam Fox 47
13= (-) Caroline Spelman 47
15 (+4) Oliver Heald 34
16 (-6) Peter Ainsworth 28
17 (+4) Cheryl Gillan 25
18= (-10) Philip Hammond 22
18= (+5) David Lidington 22
20 (-) Andrew Mitchell 21
21 (-6) Theresa May 10
22 (-4) Theresa Villiers 8
23 (-1) Lord Strathclyde 5
- David Maclean 131
- Graham Brady 107

18 comments:

Giles Marshall said...

This is interesting and does reveal the extent of the problem of Tory front bench anonymity. On the other hand, much depends on how much the leader of a party is willing to promote a collegiate style. Modern politics demands almost a presidential approach, even in a parliamentary democracy, and Cameron is responding to that. We cannot therefore always blame the shadow cabinet themselves for their lack of profile, especially when it is presumably granted or denied by the leader's own PR machine!

And in the wake of Willetts - can you blame him for being chary of shadow cabinet independence?!

Anonymous said...

I would question the value of any league table where one wins by being eviscerated by the press.

It would however be useful to have Boris as a benchmark.

In fact it would be nice to have 'the Boris' as the unit of publicity.

e.g. This month Cameron has achieved a publicity rating of 4.3 Borises. Fox only got 0.08 of a Boris a shameful performance.

Anonymous said...

off topic i know but how about calculating blairs average speed since he handed his notice in.

Newmania said...

Hague`s performance continues to be unacceptable

Anonymous said...

Patrick McLoughlin?

Also, please can you do the same for the Labour cabinet. would be especially interesting to see which deputy leadership candidate gets the most media.

Anonymous said...

Willetts seems to have achieved a publicity rating of -347.8 Borises. Is this a record?

Anonymous said...

But this is somewhat meaningless if many of the press mentions Camerong was getting were negative articles - or is there really no such thing as bad publicity ??

Anonymous said...

Do we really believe David Davis is looking at this list and thinking 'Hmm..I've dropped one place in the charts; can't have that - I know I'll make some damn fool comment about the Grammar Schools fiasco to get my second place slot back..'..

I can't see it myself..

Anonymous said...

Theres a e-petition to keep the 10p tax band,this is something that is going to effect a lot of people on low income.if you have a moment please could you sign it.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Savethe10pcband/

The Hitch said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
The Hitch said...

Now that our kind host Mr Dale has decided to allow posters to use Anglo Saxon phrases to describe folk rather than modern swear words I would just like to point out that I think David Cameron is (a) quaint!

No doubt fans of Chaucer will understand what I mean.

Iain Dale said...

Hitch, that was only on the Mellor thread!

Newmania said...

Hitch -Did you know that Chaucer is the first writer to use the Northern accent to denote simplicity , in the Reeves tale.

Hmmm now I thought the whole thing with a blog was that you got some posts every now and then , or is that just me ?

Anonymous said...

I agree that it would be very interesting to see how Boris Johnson compares.

Chris Paul said...

Time to get Maclean and Brady in the 1st XI surely? Please please please!

Chris Paul said...

PS ... only the Mellor thread? Iain, how about the Irish elections "Don't complain" rant. Half a dozen Fs and a C in that. Your abstinence was sadly very short lived.

Anonymous said...

So below runaway leader Dave that,s two brains followed by two manse followed by no mane followed by no br, hang on a minute, I'll get to the point soon, i promise i will.....

Anonymous said...

CAMERON MEY GET THE MOST PRESS COVERAGE.ALAS SO DID BLAIR.I WAS ALWAYS TAUGHT EMPTY VESSELS MAKE THE MOST NOISE.