Friday, March 30, 2007

The Shadow Cabinet Media Tarts List

Stephen Tall has compiled a ranking of all LibDem MPs based on the number of press mentions over the last three months on Lexis Nexis. It's quite a useful way of measuring the impact a politician has, particularly those on the front bench. So, ever one to nick a good idea, I thought I'd look at the Conservative Shadow Cabinet's mentions on the Press Association Newswire service during March. Obviously you can't just judge someone's performance by the number of times someone appears in the press, but it's interesting anyway.

1. Andrew Lansley 47
2. David Davis 45
3. George Osborne 41
4. William Hague 31
5. Theresa May 28
6. Liam Fox 25
7. David Mundell 17
8. David Willetts 16
9. Cheryl Gillan 15
10. Francis Maude 14
11. Oliver Heald 12
12. Alan Duncan 12
13. Oliver Letwin 11
14. Caroline Spelman 10
15. Hugo Swire 10
16. Theresa Villiers 8
17. David Lidington 8
18. Lord Strathclyde 7
19. Peter Ainsworth 6
20. Chris Grayling 6
21. Andrew Mitchell 5
22. Philip Hammond 4

Bearing in mind the profile on environmental issues and pensions Peter Ainsworth and Philip Hammond ought to be far higher.

Anyone know how much a Lexis Nexis subscription costs?

UPDATE: A reader has done a similar job with Lexis Nexis for mentions over the last three months to reflect the method used by Stephen Tall.

1. David Davis 1197
2. George Osborne 853
3. William Hague 562
4. Liam Fox 378
5. Chris Grayling 311
6. Andrew Lansley 269
7. Hugo Swire 206
8. Caroline Spelman 178
9. Peter Ainsworth 171
10. David Willetts 154
11. Philip Hammond 139
12. Cheryl Gillan 139
13. Theresa May 133
14. David Mundell 129
15. Alan Duncan 128
16. Francis Maude 124
17. Oliver Heald 105
18. Oliver Letwin 94
19. Lord Strathclyde 65
20. Andrew Mitchell 57
21. David Lidington 53
22. Theresa Villiers 28

15 comments:

jailhouselawyer said...

Why do you have Peter Ainsworth at 18 when he should be 19 or 20. 7 is higher than 6. Not that I wish to be pedantic...

Anonymous said...

Our Lexisnexis subscription (for the legal products offered) costs about £40,000 a year. Perhaps you'd better ask your readers to dig deeply into their pockets!

Anonymous said...

There's one name missing from your list who ought to there, Iain - for his hard work, total dedication to his job and for his tenacity at ferretting out information to help him fight for us lot out here.

He may not be mentioned in the national newspapers as often as the others on your list, but he certainly deserves to be and one day he will be.

Jeremy Hunt, MP for SW Surrey and Shadow Minister for disabled people.

What a great MP he is, one of the few I don't begrudge paying a thumping expense bill for, because this man earns his pay and he's ace. When his constituents held a vigil outside parliament against closure of their local hospital, Jeremy Hunt was with them. And that's just one of countless local and national causes he champions. He may not be mentioned in the national press as often as he deserves, but one day he will be.

I wrote Jeremy to thank him for asking the first parliamentary question about why PMQs is not subtitled for hearing impaired viewers - and was amazed to receive a lengthy and detailed reply from him. Hansard must be crammed with his questions because he never lets up.

With the exception of you and Boris, I don't like politicians as a species, but I'll make an exception for hard working Jeremy Hunt.

Auntie Flo'

Trubes said...

There is a really sincere man called Chris Lighten who has the courage to stand for the conservatives in Liverpool!

Anonymous said...

Of course, the mentions could all be "That Andrew Lansley, he's a prat". Hard to see how else he could get to no 1.

admin said...

Through the joy of being at university, I have access to LexisNexis. I did a search through the last 3 months, using the name as put down by Iain, and the discriminators Tory OR Conservative OR Shadow.

Here are my results:
Total Newspapers
David Davis 1197 853
George Osborne 853 650
William Hague 562 368
Liam Fox 378 249
Chris Grayling 311 236
Andrew Lansley 269 192
Hugo Swire 206 154
Caroline Spelman 178 127
Peter Ainsworth 171 119
David Willetts 154 116
David Mundell 129 106
Francis Maude 124 98
Philip Hammond 139 93
Theresa May 133 77
Alan Duncan 128 77
Oliver Heald 105 71
Oliver Letwin 94 69
Cheryl Gillan 139 67
Lord Strathclyde 65 44
Andrew Mitchell 57 41
David Lidington 53 35
Theresa Villiers 28 19

The first column gives the total number of returns for the search, the second column the total number of returns purely from Newspaper articles or op-eds.

admin said...

Sorry it's a bit hard to read, but I can't post tables in the comments here. I've emailed Iain with a more easily readable for of them, if he wants to use them.

As I was bored, I also did a search for David Cameron. He got more results for the 3 month period than LexisNexis can return >3000, so I did a search for the last 4 weeks, and got results of 2694 total returns, and 1890 for newspapers only.

admin said...

Another post, sorry, but I just read the comments, and so did a search for Jeremy Hunt, and got results of 9 total hits, and 5 newspaper hits.

Alan Douglas said...

Sad to say, most of those on the list are"Who?" to me. At the equivalent stage of the political cycle, pre '97, we had far more anti-government rhetoric force-fed us by NuLab, with more comment, more well-known faces making those comments, and MUCH more coordination of the angles of attack against the Conservative government.

Remember "Tory sleaze" ? Everywhere, all the time, from every face, even if mostly undeserved. NOW, when it IS deserved, and right at the heart of the NuLab government, we hear virtually nothing. Oh, for a Tory Alistair Campbell ....

Alan Douglas

Andrew said...

Auntie Flo, a.k.a. Jeremy's Mum :-)

Anonymous said...

How about Richard Bacon, who has done a superb job on exposing the Govt time and again, and knows how to give a straight answer to reporters whilst staying a true gent.

DC - get him in the Cabinet!

Anonymous said...

Andrew said...
Auntie Flo, a.k.a. Jeremy's Mum :-)

Auntie Flo's not even Jeremy's constituent, but she wishes she was :)

Richard Bailey said...

Iain,

Since setting up my business I have a "Pay as you use" Lexis Nexis service which is excellent,as you can attribute all your useage to specific accounts so that the costs can be very accurately attributed.
I started on a £250 per month one user deal, because they initially denied that they offered this service but when I threatened to leave they suddenly remembered!!

Anonymous said...

The equivalent figure for David Cameron is 5,452 over 3 months.

Iain Dale only get 20 hits (26 if you include the search term blog).

Iain Dale said...

I am surprised it is that many!