#battlefornumber10: who won the social media war?

Ed Miliband has a new fan, and his name is Nigel Farage.

"The stuff that Paxman threw at Miliband was quite personal, really quite hard stuff, and he dealt with it incredibly well," said the Ukip leader, swilling a glass of red while talking to journalists in the press room after last night's TV showdown, in which Miliband and David Cameron faced questions live on Sky News.

And it seems that, unusually, the Twittersphere—and pretty much all the journalists in the press room last night—might actually agree with the Ukip leader.

Miliband had 52 per cent positive sentiment on social media during the debates, compared to just 47 per cent for the Prime Minister, according to Karo Moilanen, an Oxford University computer scientist.

Moilanen used his social media analytics tool TheySay to monitor online reaction to the debates. He tells me that the key to Miliband's success was that he provoked a strong, emotional response, which drove traffic.

Moilanen compares Miliband's performance, which was often apparently unscripted and emotive, covering topics like his opposition to the war in Syria and the fallout from his decision to run for leader against his bother, to Alistair Darling's surprisingly powerful turn in the first Scottish Referendum TV debate. "It was potentially a bit of a shock [to the public] to see him because the expectations were that he would be just another drone, but he went on to a sort of rampage," Moilanen tells me.

A Guardian/ICM poll released immediately after the debate appeared to find in favour of Cameron, with 54 per cent of viewers saying Cameron won, but the detail of the poll is arguably favourable to Miliband. Miliband generally comes out way behind Cameron in his personal ratings and his perceived suitability to be Prime Minister. Such a close split between the two is a real improvement for him (though a snap poll of this kind should always be taken with a pinch of salt.)

It's worth noting, though, that in line with his often shaky personal ratings, Miliband provoked a much wider range of responses on social media—from humour to anger and even fear—than Cameron, whose flat performance met with a similarly flat reception online.

Also, of course, social media represents only one switched-on section of the population; its verdict will not necessarily be typical.

But Miliband, plagued recently by some very public gaffes, should be pleased with the outcome.