General election leaders' debate in numbers: Nigel Farage is most talked about as Gary Lineker calls him a 'dick'. Natalie Bennett wins most Twitter followers

Poll of polls ties David Cameron and Ed Miliband in first place, but there are plenty more stories to tell through numbers and graphs

The leaders' debate (PA)

The polls may give us an overview of how viewers responded to the debate, but research for The Independent paints a more nuanced story of the seven-way battle.

The most important numbers from the night were from the four snap polls. An average of the YouGov, ICM, ComRes and Survation polls put David Cameron and Ed Miliband tied in first place:

But maybe the real aim of the debates for some of the leaders was simply to increase their number of Twitter followers. Natalie Bennett is a clear winner in this category:

Which party leader attracted the most positive comments on Twitter?

Nicola Sturgeon. An analysis of sentiments expressed by Twitter users towards the party leaders showed the SNP leader dominated the positive ratings competition. 72 per cent of tweets mentioning her were positive, while David Cameron and Nigel Farage received just as many negative mentions as they did positive. Green represents positive feedback; red is negative.

The table below also shows that Mr Farage and Mr Miliband attracted the most humour on Twitter, while the Ukip leader generated the highest amount of fear and anger expressed during the two-hour debate.

What Twitter users felt towards the leaders (TheySay Analysis)

The leader who attracted the most mentions on Twitter was Nigel Farage, followed by David Cameron and Ed Miliband.

But the most talked about party was Labour:

Labour held the highest volume of chat during the debate

Immigration, the NHS and education were the most popular topics on Twitter during the debate:

Back to important matters: who got the most re-tweeted tweets?