To anyone on social media, this image has been hard to miss. Rarely found without a caption, spectators have seized the chance to proclaim this as proving some grand truth about politics. Some parade it as evidence that women make for better politicians, being friendly whilst the men shout at each other. Some are using it to mock Miliband, as rejected and left out by this progressive alliance, perhaps repeating the personal attack about his lack of social skills.
Both claims are equally dishonest.
Gender or ideology?
The first is simply a false comparison. The three women here are not in political competition, at least not to the extent that the male leaders are. Ideologically, their three parties are extremely close, so they are practically all on the same side. Geographically, Sturgeon's SNP only field candidates in Scotland, Wood's Plaid Cymru only field them in Wales, and Bennett's Green party are pretty much only relevant in the south of England. None of them hope to win votes or seats off of each other, which means they have no reason not to be friendly.
This isn't true of the three central parties, who are locked in constant competition for the exact same seats, and also face pressure to differentiate themselves. The coalition this year didn't help dissuade people who think the three parties are all the same, and Clegg and Cameron are actually criticised when they show they can work together. If they were shown cuddling and giggling, it goes without saying that they would lose all respect, dropping votes by being seen as on the same team, unprofessional, and not "Prime Ministerial".
None of these three women is looking to become Prime Minister. Sturgeon has a shot at real leverage, but as she is under no threat from the other two parties (they can only hope to gain a handful of seats between them) and practically has a monopoly in Scotland, she is not under anywhere near the same level of pressure as Miliband and Cameron, who are neck-and-neck in the leadership race, or Clegg, whose party are trying to survive a landslide defeat.
The others would only be criticised if they were the ones who embraced, probably by the same people who trumpeted this photo as a criticism. Gender may be completely irrelevant, meaning that this remains true even if the genders of the leaders were swapped. Alternatively, it may present a tautology: many people may have only celebrated this hug because it was between women, for reasons including our societal preference for female affection over male, and so are talking in circles if they hold this up as why women are better.
Ed left out?
The second claim is simply not true, wrongly taking a still image as representative of a moving scene. There were five lecterns. The instant that the debate ended, all four of the leaders on the left headed to the central lectern together to hug/shake hands. Miliband only joined in last because his lectern happened to be the furthest away, and he shook hands with all three of the women.
This second photo, which shows these four greeting but Farage standing on his own, is a much more accurate depiction of who was left out, as he is the only leader not to make the effort to walk over to the others.
Again, however, there are party considerations. The left four are all left-wing parties, whereas Farage is alone on the right in both senses. Whilst it makes sense for Miliband to greet the others, given that he may well have to enter a coalition and work with one or more of them, Farage can rightly view them as nothing but opposition, and so it isn't fair to expect him to treat them in the same way. If anything, as he had been claiming that the others were all the same, standing apart works in his favour.
There is also more to this picture: as with the first, it is just a snapshot. After the other four were done, Sturgeon and Miliband walked over to shake hands with Farage, whilst Wood and Bennett walked off. That's the only true observation you can get out of this: it wasn't Wood, Bennett, and Sturgeon rejecting Miliband, or even those four rejecting Farage, but the two former rejecting the latter.
What is also interesting to note is that, whilst all five leaders headed out to shake the hand of the chair, the other four continued into the audience whilst Farage just walked out. This is hardly surprising, as he had already attacked the audience as too biased to the left, but if you want a story about who did or didn't shake hands with who (what is this, a football match?) then that's the accurate one.
The above photographs are just misleading screenshots, with the participants still in motion and heading together. Presenting them with either of the captions is either ignorant or dishonest.
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