Changes at Libcon, after our best month ever
I’m pleased to say that Liberal Conspiracy had its best month ever, in terms of readers, during the normally dead month of July.
Obviously the News of the World scandal pushed up numbers, but other topics including Melanie Phillips were also popular (thanks Mel!)
The website had over 164,000 ‘Absolute Unique Visitors’ (Google Analytics) in July, although the real figure is likely to be over 200,000 as it does not include people who read the site only via RSS feeds.
Total page-views for the month were over 450,000.
Inevitably, this has put a lot of strain on the server and is costing a small bomb in hosting costs.
As I said earlier, the Guardian is now selling our ad space.
I have to increase ad space here with a banner at the top, since the Google ads aren’t as good.
Plus, our hosting costs are set to increase as the site keeps going down whenever we get a big spike in traffic. I’m also looking into moving hosting companies and will have to pay extra for flexibility to increase server memory when traffic shoots up.
These were the top ten stories in July, by page views:
1. Leaked audio: Rebekah Brooks angrily questioned by NotW staff
2. Watch: Jon Stewart on the Murdoch hearings
3. Charity workers dispute allegations against Johann Hari
4. Oslo Terrorist cited Melanie Phillips in his manifesto
5. An advertiser boycott of NotW – how you can help
6. Factcheck: Tory MP did lie about Piers Morgan
7. What are people like Melanie Phillips calling for then?
8. Daily Mail’s attempt to blame teachers for girl’s death backfires
9. Compare Melanie Phillips now to her writing after 7/7 attacks
10. George Michael wades in on NotW revelations on Twitter
Cheers for reading!
This torture inquiry is now utterly discredited
One of the odd afflictions of those who comment on politics and those who actually conduct it, is that whenever a scandal erupts we demand an inquiry.
This isn’t because either of the two groups have any great faith in the inquiry getting to the bottom of what actually happened – it’s because neither know what else to do other than ask some independent grandee to investigate. Strangely though, this initial cynicism and scepticism is often forgotten once the report is published and the conclusion fails to satisfy.
History seems unlikely to repeat itself when it comes to the coalition’s purposely crippled inquiry into the security services’ alleged collusion in torture.
continue reading… »
Jerusalem Post ‘sorry’ to Norway for editorial
On 25th July, the Jerusalem Post published an editorial that seemed to blame Norway’s own policies for the terrorist attacks:
Undoubtedly, there will be those – particularly on the Left – who will extrapolate out from Breivik’s horrific act that the real danger facing contemporary Europe is rightwing extremism and that criticism of multiculturalism is nothing more than so much Islamophobia.
While it is still too early to determine definitively Breivik’s precise motives, it could very well be that the attack was more pernicious – and more widespread – than the isolated act of a lunatic. Perhaps Brievik’s inexcusable act of vicious terror should serve not only as a warning that there may be more elements on the extreme Right willing to use violence to further their goals, but also as an opportunity to seriously reevaluate policies for immigrant integration in Norway and elsewhere.
The ‘Muslim population’ was set to increase from 3% of the population currently to 6.5% by 2030 it warned gravely. You’ll be sorry!
The editorial sparked international condemnation for understandable reasons.
Today, the Jerusalem Post published another editorial apologising to Norway:
It later emerged that Breivik, a Christian radical, had posted on the Internet an extremely anti-Muslim manifesto that supported far-right nationalism and Zionism.
He apparently feared that a “Muslim colonization” of Europe would destroy Norway.
This is certainly not the kind of support Israel needs. It is the type of Islamophobia that is all too reminiscent of the Nazis’ attitude toward the Jews. Jews, Muslims and Christians in Israel and around the world should be standing together against such hate crimes.
Well that’s a good start.
It’s also much better than the reaction of many conservative commentators in the UK, who screeched at how the terrorist attacks would ‘help the left’ and set back their anti-immigration and anti-Muslim cause.
Confused on libertarians and hanging? You shouldn’t be
Chris Dillow finds the internet libertarians’ campaign to bring back hanging surprising.
Guido Fawkes is confusing me. He’s campaigning for the death penalty on the grounds that the public want it… And here’s my confusion. Guido has also long claimed to be a libertarian. But libertarianism and democracy conflict, simply because public opinion is on many issues very illiberal.
Luckily, I’m on hand to clear up any doubts and set the story straight.
continue reading… »
New revenue? Guardian expands ad network
The Guardian newspaper is looking at expanding advertising revenue by selling inventory for independent websites across the web.
The newspaper had already been selling advertising for some websites but has now expanded that network and re-launched it as ‘Guardian Select’.
Liberal Conspiracy was recently accepted as part of the network, and ads on this site will soon be sold directly by the newspaper’s sales team.
The Guardian Select website states that it can help publishers who run a quality blog or website by building their business through ad sales and content partnerships.
Advertisers get a ‘simple and secure way of reaching the Long Tail of engaged and passionate users across a range of sectors’.
Websites are placed in categories (travel, culture, green, media / technology) and ads are sold accordingly.
The Guardian has now re-branded that side of the business as Guardian Select and launched specific Facebook and Twitter accounts that will also highlight good content from across the network.
Even a tax-cut goes against Osborne’s economic narrative
Most readers will wince every time they hear a minister talking about ‘maxing out the nation’s credit card’.
Those of us old enough to remember can hear the direct echoes of Mrs Thatcher’s housewife’s purse, which she used to justify what in retrospect look like quite mild cuts in spending.
Yet this simple narrative has worked for the government…until now.
continue reading… »
Fake @LizJonesSomalia raises £12k for charity
A parody account on Twitter - @LizJonesSomalia – has raised over £12,000 for the drought in just a matter of hours.
The parody account was set up after the Daily Mail sent its columnist Liz Jones to cover the famine in Somalia.
The satirical tweets included:
The temperature is 33°C in Somalia today. In Waitrose it’s always 15°C. *sigh*
and
Some of these refugees have mobile phones. How poor are they really? My mobile bill is over £100. How can they afford that?
The account quickly ratcheted up over 7,000 followers.
It was started by the @DMreporter account, which parodies the Daily Mail.
He wrote on his blog today:
I’ve always liked those zeitgeist Twitter accounts which pop up from time to time – @ChileanMiner @CatBinLady etc – which are wildly successful for a brief period and rightfully pass on.
They get a lot of attention very quickly, and often focus debate on a certain subject. Wouldn’t it be ace if that attention could be used for the power of good?
So, today, he started a fund-raising drive.
The page on JustGiving states:
£13,000 could vaccinate 13,000 children, feed 1200 people for a fortnight or buy 500 family hygiene kits to prevent the spread of disease.
All week we’ve all had a laugh, we’ve made fun of Liz Jones and criticised the hell out of her – now let’s make this experience about more than just a snarky Twitter feed and save some lives, and in the process stick it to a newspaper that thinks Twitter is just for telling people what you had for breakfast.
Donations have already topped an impressive £12K.
Donate from here. See the Twitter feed here.
E-petition launched to retain ban on hanging
An e-petition to retain the ban on capital punishment has already gathered more signatures than the one to bring back hanging.
As the e-petitions site went live today, it included the petition below by Martin Shapland:
A petition to call on the government to retain its position regards the abolition of the Death Penalty for all offences.
That the British people note that only 58 nations currently use capital punishment, as opposed to 95 which have abolished it, further notes the un-retractable nature of such a sentence in incidents of miscarriages of Justice, further notes the death penalty does not reduce crime or act as a deterrent and in US states which practice capital punishment incidents of homicide are higher than US states which do not, further notes the higher cost of capital punishment compared to life imprisonment, believes that British Justice should not be in the same league as China, Iran, North Korea, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Libya and Syria which do practice capital punishment on a routine basis and that the death penalty is the ultimate denial of human rights and an affront to the values of British Justice.
Seems to be written like an Early Day Motion (as one long sentence rather than broken up) but it works for us!
Right now, it has 939 signatures compared to 655 to bring back hanging.
Always link, even to your enemies
In my morning trawl through the Internet recently, I noticed two examples of a practice that has become mainstream: denying the object of your opprobrium a link.
First, the fascinating Brian Kellet writes this, in a fisk of a Liz Jones column about the NHS says:
I’m not going to link to the original story because I don’t want to send visitors to the rag that is the Daily Mail.
How likely is another global financial crisis?
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blog wondering whether July 2011 felt like July 1914 did.
And then along came a Greek deal, and now a US debt deal, and you might presume I had been prematurely melodramatic. I wish that were true; I very much doubt it is.
Just to put this in context the Guardian reported yesterday that stock markets are taking fright over the health of the global economy and the ongoing European debt crisis.
continue reading… »
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» The real agenda behind Telegraph’s abortion investigation
» How Scotland Yard monitors prying bloggers and journalists
» When disabled people want to work – employers can hold the back
» Revealed: the reality behind Workfare and why it doesn’t work
» Job snob? No, I’ve got the T-shirt
» Why country-by-country reporting matters to our wellbeing
» If Unions want to become stronger, they need to modernise
» Why work “reforms” in Spain are a warning for workers across Europe
» Five things you need to know about the NHS bill
» Bigger. Fatter. Gypsier. More Racist.
» Laziness levels in Britain getting lazier, wails government
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