How Not to Interpret Data ...

... Or why Harry Cole is an idiot. Here's a graph of mentions per minute on Twitter from the lovely folks at Digital Contact.

As you can see from the graph, mentions by David Cameron far outstrip those of Ed Miliband. This leads Harry Cole, chamber pot carrier-in-chief of the Guido Fawkes rabble to exclaim:

Official: Miliband well and truly thumped by Cameron tonight. Absolutely brutal result from Digital Contact: pic.twitter.com/D5KV8y9KzQ

— Harry Cole (@MrHarryCole) April 30, 2015

Indeed. Except there are two things wrong with his learned observation.

Firstly, mentions aren't positive mentions. Had I been tweeting throughout tonight's apecial Question Time, I would have been mouthing off about Dave more than Ed or Nick. I imagine the army of lefties that have made Twitter their home did exactly that.

The second point - if you examine the time you see the worm pick up at one minute past eight before entering a sharp decline at 20:35. That's the time period Dave was on the television screen. Of course he's going to get more mentions than his nemesis when he's on. 

What this graph leaves unanswered is whether Harry Cole was wearing his stupid or his dishonest hat tonight. Knowing his appalling reputation round and about the Westminster Village, I think he had on both.