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Boris Johnson ‘won’ feisty ITV debate clash dominated by Brexit, say Brits on social media
BORIS Johnson won last night's TV debate clash with Jeremy Hunt and the public were most interested in Brexit, Brits on social media think.
Most people thought the Brexiteer was the overall winner after he went head-to-head to become the country's next PM, analysis by Storyful news agency revealed.
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The two candidates tore chunks out of each other in an extremely heated row last night live on ITV.
Boris promised to get Britain off the "hamster wheel of doom" by finally delivering Brexit by October 31 as promised, but underdog Mr Hunt went on the attack saying he was only interested in the power of being PM and writing newspaper columns, not delivering for the country.
But Mr Hunt was the most mentioned on social media last night, the analysis revealed, with 3,692 occurrences last night, followed by Boris with 3,447 mentions.
A whopping 12,483 tweets were sent throughout the hour-long debate and for the 30 minutes after.
Not everyone thought Boris did well though, with 49 posts saying he was "embarrassing" and 17 calling him a "clown".
More people were angry, (29 per cent) sad (27 per cent) or fearful (23 per cent) when talking about Boris, Storyful's analysis showed.
Mr Hunt sparked more joy among the online audience, with 18 per cent compared to Boris' two per cent.
Social-media savvy Brits who chose to use emojis in their posts were most likely to use the laughing/crying face emoji - with 100 uses.
That was followed by the confused face on 94 mentions and the eye-roll face with 55.
Hundreds noticed that Mr Hunt referred to himself as an entrepreneur yet again and biggest up his NHS credentials.
The top hashtags on Twitter about the debate were #BackBoris and #BorisJohnson with more than 200 mentions, while #JeremyHunt and #HasttobeHunt got far fewer.
95 per cent of the debate commentary happened on Twitter but interactions also occurred on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube too.
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Next week the two candidates will go head-to-head again in a live debate with The Sun and talkRADIO.
They will clash for the final time just a week before the new PM is revealed on 24 July.
Around half of the Tory members are thought to have already cash their votes and sent them back, however.
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