Ed Milliband is making a low profile visit to Washington today and is scheduled to make a speech to a Washington thinktank, the Centre for American Progress, highlighting the confluence in Labour and Democrat thinking about the broken link between economic growth and shared prosperity.
The trip has not been widely reported, as every effort has been made for Miliband to meet Barack Obama during the visit, and so far officials on both sides of the pond have not confirmed a meeting. Instead, Obama’s spokesperson has confirmed a meeting with national security adviser Susan Rice.
Miliband’s team is hoping that Obama will find time for a “brush-by” meeting as it could raise Miliband’s profile in the US and improve his approval ratings in the polls back home. The same level of courtesy was extended to David Cameron in 2008 when the then-leader of the opposition met Obama’s predecessor, George Bush Jr.
In the wake of a general election, such occasions are often billed as an interview for the Prime Minister position. British opposition leaders have had mixed fortunes when making such visits in the past, most notably Neil Kinnock and his untimely comments to Ronald Reagan about nuclear disarmament. Ed Milliband’s visit will be highly choreographed and scripted to avoid any such faux pas next week.
But with just 10 months to go until the general election, Miliband appears very keen for advice and more kudos from the US president, who is struggling in the polls himself.
So is there any confluence in Labour’s and the Democrat’s popularity in the polls ahead of the visit? We think is will be interesting to see how the 2 leaders are fairing according to sentiment expressed on Twitter.
Blurrt has pulled 65.63k tweets mentioning Obama over the weekend, of which 15% are positive, 38% negative and 47% neutral.
The graph below shows the Blurrt score for Obama over the past 48 hours. The Blurrt score is a simple combination of average sentiment and volume of tweets. It offers a stable, comparable index to display day to day changes in Twitter sentiment, or shorter-term reaction to news stories or shock events.
Barack Obama has an average Blurrt score of 20.
Blurrt has pulled 1.7k tweets mentioning Miliband over the weekend, of which 31% are positive, 27% negative and 42% neutral.
The graph below shows the Blurrt score for Miliband over the past 48 hours. The Blurrt score is a simple combination of average sentiment and volume of tweets. It offers a stable, comparable index to display day to day changes in Twitter sentiment, or shorter-term reaction to news stories or shock events.
Ed Mililband has an average Blurrt score of 32 over that time period.
Rather than there being a confluence in Obama’s and Miliband’s Blurrt Scorre – it seems Miliband is forging ahead. It will be interesting to see how the visit is covered in the news and whether the high stakes trip to Washington has paid off for team Labour or not.