UKIP was the most discussed political party on Facebook in the run up to the General Election while David Cameron topped the leader chart, the social media website has revealed.

Ukip's 18 million likes, shares, comments and posts - or interactions - comfortably beat the Tories into second place with around 14 million interactions. SNP was in fifth place with 2.5 million interactions - calculated as either a like, share or a comment.

But the Prime Minister racked up nearly double the number of Facebook interactions than Nigel Farage, with around nine million for Mr Cameron to about 5.5 million for the Ukip leader.

Ed Miliband lagged behind with around 4 million interactions between January 1 and May 7, according to Facebook, while Labour as a party garnered around 11 million interactions.

Nicola Sturgeon had 1.1 million interactions from 330,000 people, according to Facebook.

Meanwhile, the most talked about issue in Scotland was the economy, with 655,000 interactions, followed by environment and energy and then tax.