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Editor’s note: News will be slow all this week because…

by Sunny Hundal February 12, 2013 at 9:30 am

Hi readers,

Liberal Conspiracy won’t be running much content this week, and perhaps next week too.

The reason behind this is that I have been commissioned to write a short book. In fact I’ve been working on it and researching it for a month.

The mini-book will be ‘published’ by Guardian Books and Amazon Kindle Singles. It won’t be in print and will only be available on the Kindle (and other devices via the Kindle app).

It’ll be on the broader context around the Delhi gang-rape and the crisis in India over attitudes to women. I’m making a specific argument about what’s going that I will detail in the future.

Anyway, it’s my first ‘book’ so this is very much a learning process. I really have difficulty concentrating for long form writing.

This was just a note to explain why there won’t be much content on LC for a couple of weeks.

2 Comments ¦ 12th February

I’m off to the US to volunteer for Obama

by Sunny Hundal September 27, 2012 at 1:06 am

Readers, coverage on Liberal Conspiracy will be light for the next 6 weeks.

First, there’s the Labour Party conference from this Sunday. I’ll be in Manchester tweeting regularly and maybe writing a few updates from there.

Straight after the conference I’m flying to the other side of the Atlantic. First for a week’s holiday and then to volunteer on the Obama campaign.

I’ll be working in Los Angeles (I know it’s not a swing state, but they do have offices there to coordinate from), and then in Nevada – which is a swing state.

I’ll have some sporadic web access but it will be difficult to update the site regularly. I will be tweeting less too.

In the meantime, Don Paskini will be responsible for the site and Shantel Burns and Sarah McAlpine will be adding to news coverage.

I’ll write more about how campaigning for Obama is going once I get settled in there and establish web access.

89 Comments ¦ 27th September

Taking a break, and coming back different

by Sunny Hundal August 13, 2012 at 6:01 pm

Hello readers,

News and opinion coverage on Liberal Conspiracy will be markedly slower over the next few weeks, at least until September starts. This is partly because I’m taking a break to focus on other projects and partly because there isn’t much interesting news around.

Secondly, and more importantly, the site will unveil a new front-page design with a markedly different focus.

More of our content will be focused on news, information and video than on opinion blogs. We will start publishing more general, cultural news and information than just politics.

There won’t be any celebrity news, I promise. But there will be more news from around the web, more videos and more short posts linking to interesting stories.

Some of you will complain about the change in focus, but from our stats it’s quite clear that more light-hearted content is way more popular than highly serious, deep policy content.

This isn’t to say we will do less of the latter. In fact, having more traffic to Libcon (which now regularly tops 100,000 absolute unique visitors a month) thanks to lighter content may encourage more visitors to read the serious, policy content.

Also, I’m interested in hearing from readers (in the comments below) on what you like or dislike about the front page and whether you check the front page regularly or not.

44 Comments ¦ 13th August

Changes at Libcon, after our best month ever

by Sunny Hundal August 5, 2011 at 11:30 am

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!

14 Comments ¦ 5th August

The editorial position of Liberal Conspiracy is…

by Sunny Hundal July 17, 2011 at 3:47 pm

When I first launched Liberal Conspiracy in Nov 2007, blogger and journalist Paul Linford was one of core contributors. He hasn’t blogged here for quite a while and last week wrote:

For a while I contributed to Liberal Conspiracy, but although I am an economic leftist, I have always been a small-c conservative on social issues and it soon became clear to me that my views on such matters as abortion were not appreciated by my fellow group bloggers there.

I think this is worth picking up, partly because we’ve had a huge influx of new readers who also don’t seem to understand the point of this site.
continue reading… »

72 Comments ¦ 17th July

My introduction at Netroots UK today

by Sunny Hundal January 8, 2011 at 9:15 am

Today, Netroots UK brings together a new generation of left activists, working and discussing politics online, with the veteran institutions of trade unions and many others.

Our plan isn’t to have long-winded discussions, but create useful spaces where people can discuss strategy drawing on their experience of local campaigns: what works and what doesn’t.

Some people have asked whether this is an event just to celebrate how great blogging, Twitter, Facebook or social media generally are. That would be absurd.
continue reading… »

83 Comments ¦ 8th January

A year of campaigns and statistics – How 2010 shaped up for us

by Sunny Hundal December 31, 2010 at 5:48 pm

Anyone remember Rod Liddle? Just over a year ago, during the Christmas holidays, I was out in the sticks and saw on my twitter that Rod Liddle was in the running to be editor of the Independent.

And so started our first campaign of 2010 – one that was ultimately successful in no small part with help from Facebook, from fellow bloggers and from email-campaign gurus 38 Degrees.

Rod Liddle even threatened legal action, but like most of his work – it came to nothing. Ah well.
continue reading… »

25 Comments ¦ 31st December

LC Blog Nation: the aftermath

by Sunny Hundal June 27, 2010 at 9:30 am

Thank you to all who came to the LC Blog Nation event. It was a lovely, sunny day and you should be commended for willing to give up your Saturday for that. We had a packed theatre hall, and I would post some pictures but I seem to have left my camera in the hall (did anyone find it?).

We also had live coverage on Twitter.

It was the first in what I hope will become an annual fixture in the political calendar. My aim was two-fold: (a) two create a space for many bloggers, activists and campaigners to meet each other and share ideas and plans; (b) discuss strategy on how the left could move forward.
continue reading… »

20 Comments ¦ 27th June

Women – hear me roar

by Kate Belgrave June 20, 2010 at 12:30 pm

Right. Frothing a bit here, people.

Liberal Conspiracy – a site I generally love with a passion – has managed to find yet another educated, well-off woman to write a ‘women are victims and sad fannies’ piece.

I can’t tell you how furious this stupendously male vision of the female state makes me.
continue reading… »

86 Comments ¦ 20th June