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Bernie Sanders is surging, and not just in the opinion polls. Audience interest in the Vermont Senator has exploded in the last few weeks, amid controversies involving fellow candidate Senator Elizabeth Warren and former Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

An endorsement by internet personality Joe Rogan has further boosted Sanders according to a new index developed by Vuelio’s sister brand, audience intelligence company Pulsar.

As the Iowa Caucus approaches on 3 February, Sanders has been driving not only the largest volume of conversations on social media over the past few weeks (13 – 26 January, 2.6m posts mentioned Sanders; more than those of the next two candidates combined – Warren and Joe Biden, both at 1.2m) but the conversation relating to Sanders is also displaying the highest velocity (a measure of how much conversation each candidate is able to create within a given hour).

‘Our index shows Sanders riding a big wave of buzz, which is consistent with movements in the polls and prediction markets’, said Marc Geffen, VP of Research and US Strategy at Pulsar. ‘In the last two weeks, the endorsement from Joe Rogan and provocative comments from Hillary Clinton have clearly activated the Sanders audience, driving both high velocity and relatively low volatility compared to the other candidates. These factors signal that the buzz around Sanders can grow at an extremely fast clip and sustain’.

Hillary Clinton failed to confirm if she would endorse Sanders if he went on to win the Democratic nomination and added: ‘Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done. He was a career politician’.

She has been criticised for reopening a divide within the Democratic party that arguably led to her being defeated as the party’s first female Presidential candidate, which paved the way for the election of President Trump.

Pulsar’s virality model – traditionally used by Pulsar to measure consumer trends, as well as film and gaming releases – takes into account five different factors, including: how much buzz has a candidate generated in the most recent period; how much momentum has this candidate recently acquired; how much buzz can this candidate drive in a given hour; whether the conversation about this candidate is stable and consistent, or highly variable; and to what extent is the buzz about this candidate maintaining high volumes over time.

In terms of total volumes, both Warren and Sanders saw a huge growth on the eve of the 14 January CNN Debate and the ensuing controversy about Sanders’ alleged remarks.

‘We observe an interesting pattern in that, over the full period we’ve been measuring, the buzz around Sanders and Warren seem to move in tandem. More than any other pair of candidates, these two seem tethered to one another in the public’s eye’, said Geffen.

Sanders however, has managed to sustain those volumes further during the second half of January both in terms of virality and interest in search data, thanks also in part to the ‘endorsement’ from Internet personality Joe Rogan, and his strong performance in polls that have put him ahead of former Vice President Joe Biden in Iowa.

While Elizabeth Warren has also had her fair share of attention, receiving endorsements from both the New York Times and the Des Moines Register (a leading Iowa daily), it has not translated into a comparable social buzz, with Biden overtaking her in terms of raw volumes over the last week.

Audience interest in other candidates has also shifted. Amy Klobuchar, boosted by a New York Times endorsement (jointly with Warren), has overtaken Buttigieg in terms of virality. However, interest in her appears less consistent or ‘streaky’, dependent on big buzz moments that do not necessarily sustain interest. ‘Steadier’ candidates such as Andrew Yang on the other hand, have been able to drive very consistent virality week on week, remaining in the top five by volume of social buzz.

Pulsar is the leading AI-powered audience intelligence platform. Combining conversational and behavioural signals from the world’s leading digital destinations, Pulsar helps brands understand their audiences better and create messages that matter to them. 

The role of Select Committees within Parliament is significant, given the important duties they undertake to oversee government departments and policy implementation.

They have regular inquiries leading to significant and newsworthy reports and are widely respected both across Parliament and outside it. They also conduct visits out to the regions and nations of the UK or overseas, depending on their remit, and frequently engage with businesses, charities, community groups or trade unions.

Crucially, although the Committee Chair’s party is decided by ‘the usual channels’ of party whips, behind closed doors and in proportion to the make-up of the House of Commons at the 2019 General Election, the Chairs themselves are nominated and elected by MPs of all parties.

All MPs can vote in the Select Committee Chair elections that take place on Wednesday, 29 January.

As the Parliament Guide to Select Committees says: ‘House of Commons Select Committees are largely concerned with examining the work of government departments. Committees in the House of Lords concentrate on six main areas: Europe, science, economics, communications, the UK constitution and international relations.’

The House of Commons Select Committees must contain 11 MPs as members, which again tend to broadly represent the make up of the House of Commons, thereby guaranteeing a majority of Conservative MPs on each Committee.

The result of the ‘usual channels’ discussions were announced in early January as the Parly political journalism project reported, with the large Government majority meaning that the Conservatives will chair three more committees than the previous 2017 to 2019 Parliament: ‘Big government majority means Tories get three more than in the last parliament. They have taken @CommonsSTC from Lib Dems, @CommonsTrans and @CommonsEAC from Labour. SNP retain their two.’

On 9 January, the Conservative, Labour and SNP leaders tabled a motion splitting the position of chair of each select committee between them, after advice from the Speaker. This motion was agreed to by MPs on 16 January. It splits the committees as follows:

• Defence: Conservative
• Digital, Culture, Media and Sport: Conservative
• Education: Conservative
• Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Conservative
• Foreign Affairs: Conservative
• Health and Social Care: Conservative
• Justice: Conservative
• Northern Ireland Affairs: Conservative
• Science and Technology: Conservative
• Transport: Conservative
• Treasury: Conservative
• Welsh Affairs: Conservative
• Women and Equalities: Conservative
• Environmental Audit: Conservative
• Procedure: Conservative
• Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs: Conservative

• Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy: Labour
• Home Affairs: Labour
• Housing, Communities and Local Government: Labour
• International Development: Labour
• Work and Pensions: Labour
• Exiting the European Union: Labour
• Petitions: Labour
• Public Accounts: Labour
• Standards: Labour
• International Trade: Scottish National Party
• Scottish Affairs: Scottish National Party

The Backbench Business Committee must be chaired by a non-Government MP, while the chair of the Liaison Committee (which is made up of the chairs of other committees) is elected by its members.

Nominations for Select Committee Chairs close at 4pm on Monday 27 January and only contested positions will lead to a formal election between the different candidates. Candidates who are unopposed will be elected automatically.

A report by the Intelligence and Security Committee on alleged Russian interference in UK elections was heavily discussed during the recent general election, as the Government postponed the report’s publication. Whilst this Committee is not a formal Select Committee, it is elected differently as its members are drawn from both Houses of Parliament and its Chair is elected by its members.

The Committee has a ‘statutory responsibility for oversight of the UK Intelligence Community’ and it too will shortly have a new Chair, as previous Chair Dominic Grieve was not re-elected in the General Election, having left the Conservative Party and failing to be re-elected as an Independent.

To use a prominent example the previous Chair of the DCMS Select Committee and one of the candidates standing for re-election this week, Damian Collins regularly speaks our on relevant issues such as the future of the BBC, which he says needs to ‘needs to both deliver value for license fee payers and meet the challenge of the new platforms like Netflix’ and on keeping children safe online. He also attended the launch event for Vuelio’s ‘The Politics of Social Media’ report, where he warned that social media was ‘coarsening the public debate’ and potentially posed ‘a threat to our democracy—and we should not accept it’.

Vuelio has put together a briefing on the election of Select Committee Chairs which is available here.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) taking place in Davos, Switzerland is dominated by discussions about new global trade deals and reducing the impact of climate change. The annual gathering first established in 1971 and formalized in 1974, sees 3,000 of the world’s richest and most powerful people gather in the Swiss resort to discuss global affairs affecting business and the economy.

Observers have been encouraged that the Forum is at last tackling environmental issues, with 17-year-old climate and environmental activist Greta Thunberg giving a keynote address.

Her speech, as reported by the New York Times, was critical of distant net zero carbon reduction targets: ‘We don’t need a low carbon economy. We don’t need to lower emissions. Our emissions have to stop if we are to have a chance to stay below the 1.5-degree target. And, until we have the technologies that at scale can put our emissions to minus, then we must forget about net zero. We need real zero.’

She repeated her warning to the political generation of today to take real action or to face their children knowing that an opportunity to change course on emissions had been missed: ‘Our house is still on fire. Your inaction is fueling the flames by the hour. And we are telling you to act as if you loved your children above all else.’

Sky News’ Economics Editor Ed Conway reported that Thunberg will later be meeting the Prince of Wales, who is also attending and speaking at the WEF on climate change. Clarence House has issued a tweet confirming the meeting.

Perennial prophets of doom
President Trump’s message seemed to be directed at Greta Thunberg despite not directly naming her: ‘This is not a time for pessimism. This is a time for optimism. To embrace the possibilities of tomorrow, we must reject the perennial prophets of doom and their predictions of the apocalypse. They are the heirs of yesterday’s foolish fortune tellers.

‘They want to see us do badly, but we don’t let that happen. They predicted an overpopulation crisis in the 1960s, mass starvation in the 70s and an end of oil in the 1990s. These alarmists always demand the same thing: absolute power to dominate, transform and control every aspect of our lives. We will never let radical socialists destroy our economy, wreck our country or eradicate our liberty.’

Donald Trump’s presence at the Forum is interesting given Boris Johnson issued a ban to his ministers from attending this year’s summit, not wanting to be part of the global elite as his re-elected Government sets about delivering Brexit and levelling up spending across the entire country. Only Chancellor Sajid Javid has been allowed to attend and he was mocked by a CNBC journalist for doing so: ‘Thank you very much for coming, and drinking champagne with billionaires here at the World Economic Forum’.

Trade deals
Despite doubts that the UK can achieve a trade deal with the EU before the end of 2020, Javid said he recognised the narrow window to conduct the trade negotiations, but that nonetheless the Government would not commence formal trade discussions with the US government on a trade deal until an EU trade deal was in place: ‘I have held a number of discussions with European colleagues and there is a strong belief on both sides that it can be done. Both sides recognise that it’s a tight timetable, a lot needs to be done. It can be done, and it can be done for both goods where we want to see zero tariffs and zero quotas, and also services’.

US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was disappointed to learn that the UK Government was prioritising an EU trade deal over one with the US but seemed confident one could also be agreed in 2020: ‘We are very much looking forward to a new trade agreement this year with the UK, it’s a big priority for us.’

Javid said of the UK’s ambition to conclude a trade deal with the US as well, ideally before the US election later this year: ‘A trade agreement between the sixth largest economy in the world and the largest economy in the world could benefit all consumers in terms of jobs and prices. It’s hugely important.’

Whether the UK can achieve these two major trade deals within the next 12 months is unclear, but what is expected is that the agreements will be conducted in phases and that an initial agreement will be completed this year, with the rest of the detailed negotiations conducted gradually over the years ahead.