William Hague, the current Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, has stormed up the TellYouGov leaderboard to unprecedented first place, following the unsubstantiated claims of a relationship between himself and one of his special advisers, Christopher Myers, after they shared a twin-bed hotel room while away working. Both have repeatedly and strenuously denied the claims, although Myers resigned over the rumours.
Hague, 49, whose TellYouGov volume score currently stands at a massive -770 points with a significant sentiment score of -227, has witnessed a torrent of comments, or ‘tygs’, from our users, or ‘tyggers’, in the past 48 hours since the story broke. And while -227 points may suggest the public are largely speaking negatively about Hague’s alleged relationship, most of the tygs received, positive and negative, are actually in support of the former leader of the opposition.
Media storm
Indeed, the majority of tyggers’ negative sentiment is actually directed at the media’s harassment of the Conservative MP for Richmond in Yorkshire and, perhaps comically, his donning of a baseball cap in the widely circulated pictures of him and Mr. Myers walking through London.
One example of this is the tygger who wrote negatively on the topic 'William Hague' purely because he thought the allegations against the MP were: ‘spiteful gossip mongering’, and ‘[the media] should leave him alone’. One tygger agreed, saying: ‘while [I’m] not a Tory supporter, [I am] disgusted that the media’s treatment of William Hague has forced him to disclose personal information about his private family life’, after Hague spoke of the miscarriages he and his wife Ffion had suffered in an attempt to diffuse the speculation surrounding his sexuality. Several other tyggers simply gave negative points because they just ‘don’t care’ about the MP’s personal life.
Fashion faux-pas
The content on the board descended briefly into silliness, however, on the issue of Hague’s fashion sense, or lack thereof. One tygger suggested that he needed a fashion adviser instead of a special adviser; while several other simply said he ‘looked bad in his baseball cap’, prompting another tygger to come to the MP’s defence, claiming that ‘everybody looks bad in a baseball cap’.
Hague had handled the media’, while another said they thought Hague had given ‘a dignified response’ to the recent allegations. One even had a message of support for the MP, assuring him that he should ‘stand strong and keep telling the truth’.
Have your say: The TellYouGov keyword for this topic is 'William Hague'
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