When Australian foreign minister Julie Bishop did a brilliant emoji interview with Buzzfeed over the weekend, we learned stuff that would have passed us by if embedded into a dry article about politics. For example, their relationship with Indonesia is :-(. Which obviously made us google Australian - Indonesian relations all morning, and now we're pretty goddamn knowledgeable about Australian foreign policy, thanks.
It also got us thinking how accessible politics would be if more emojis were used - yes, political snobs (or just political correspondents) will be eye-rolling all over the place, but if they spoke a bit more in our language (and no, David Cameron, nobody uses the term 'chatarama' to describe an informal conversation) then maybe we'd be more engaged.
Featuring, the following Big Hitters (i.e. the four main parties that are hitting the headlines right now):
Anyway, here's what's kicking in the current election race - as described in emoji format:
**Labour roll out their new campaign for women, using a pink minibus. **
The Conservative's pledge to cut benefits for drug addicts and alcoholics
The Lib Dems hit a 25-year low in polls
**The Green Party do a bit of crowdfunding for their campaign... and absolutely nail it. **
And, just to round things off, here are the results of the latest ICM poll - with number of emoji, relating to number of points. The Tophats -sorry - Tories have gained six points to remain in the lead above Labour who are down one point, Lib Dems who are down by a point, along with Green Party and UKIP who are also down by a point each.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.