It’s a tough one you know….I don’t think it was any of the political parties, I don’t think it was any of the media and I don’t think it was one specific politician. Following the groundbreaking US election that saw Obama elected, it was only natural for folks this side of the pond to predict something similar to unfold in our election. But alas, we have always been that slightly awkward character (that Hugh Grant tends to play) when compared directly to our American cousins. As Russell Howard jokes, we’re sort of looking over the pond like a slightly envious teenager who’s a bit embarrassed by their dad.

But who did win? Popular opinion, that’s who. And what do I mean by that then? Well, we had every single media outlet trying to tell us who to go for, why the other guy was the “bad guy” and how the country was headed for ruin should we not use our vote carefully. But then, something interesting started to happen……

As the traditional media took their sides and we ended up with selective and sensationalist reporting (one of my favourites was the Daily Mail’s “Nick Clegg in Nazi slur on Britain”) public opinion via social media remained steady and probably the truest representation of what Britain actually thought, for example this little beauty in response to the Nick Clegg story. It became increasingly obvious throughout the campaign that popular opinion was a lot different to the opinion being churned out by the major news outlets, for example the #nickcleggsfault hashtag in response to the increasingly negative stories about him appearing in mainstream media.

As such, Nick Clegg started to emerge a sort of social media rock star, the object of affection for many. Did he win this accolade through his own savvy handling of the social media space? Nope, Britain showed mainstream news that it didn’t want to be told its opinion, it wanted to share it.