Sometime in the last few minutes someone gave me a record year on this blog. 2016 has now delivered the highest annual traffic I have ever enjoyed:
That's especially enjoyable because 2015's success was partly down to the Corbyn effect and the phenomenal success of this post, which was written in 2014 but which by itself created more than 200,000 hits in 2015. I have had nothing equivalent this year, and have still broken previous records. I admit to being pleased and say a big thank you to all involved.
If you could now keep clicking to give a two million reads year that would also be fun. Only 68,000 to go, but Christmas on the horizon when (and this may surprise you) not so many people call by. So, thanks in anticipation, just in case it happens.
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Congratulations and thank you for letting me take part.
You’re welcome!
You sound surprised. My 1980’s A Level Economics really doesn’t stand muster these days but the jargon-ish (probably not possible to be entirely jargon free) free and well written and clearly presented. Definitely puts me in the right-hand column.
Thanks
Congratulations and many thanks for your extraordinary energy and insights. One can only hope & pray that they will eventually seep into mainstream politcal policy, sooner rather than later, for all our sakes.
Who knows
I will keep going
I am told they are read….
Well done. Thanks for providing an oasis of sanity in what seems an increasingly propagandised world and even accept most of my rants against the current zeitgeist. What could be more stimulating over Christmas than discussing your considered analysis?
I just checked and actually the immediate post Christmas period last year had double average daily reads….
Thanks for your incredible effort and endurance – a force of nature. I read 2 or 3 blogs daily to make sense of current economic and politics, yours is at the top and has been for 4 years. I also read daily the FT, Huff Post, Telegraph (as point of reference for who the Establishment want to do over), and The Guardian, in order of preference. The BBC is dropping off my radar, especially BBC TV where the current affairs and news is often Govt placed stories (in the Yuval Harari sense) not thought provoking Journalism. I suspect it was ever so. BBC data, Sport and Weather is something I use.
A half hour show on ITV is now possible! It would be good TV – nice to think of you being in The Chair and having Andrew Neil as The Guest 🙂 but it would likely be on very late cf John Pilger’s occasional appearances and of course one of Neil’s sofa shows.
That would be fun…..
You produce short, clear and highly relevant posts which are readable and interesting. I’m not surprised it’s doing well. I do wish, however, that some in government could actually pay a bit more attention to it, and show some slight evidence of understanding basic economics. Anyway, keep up the good work, and I’m sure we all keep reading!
It is read: I get ample feedback saying that
I can only assume it’s also ignored
I have started funding open source software and donated to Wikipedia for the first time. All of need to think about ways of resisting concentrations of power that act against our common interests. This blog points to a different ethical future.
Curiously I too have just decided to donate to Wikipedia
And quite a lot of the research I am now doing will run on open source, and not just for reasons of economy
> not just for reasons of economy
That’s the least important reason to use it! In the end resisting concentration of power summarises mine.
Here’s a nice blog post from Fastmail, which I use for email in preference to “free” alternatives, on the subject: https://blog.fastmail.com/2016/12/12/why-we-contribute/
Long time reader, first time commenter; as they say. I’d just like to say that your output gets read and discussed every day in this household. I also share your pieces frequently to a couple of online groups I participate in. I do wonder about the isolation in which all this is disseminated and received and how the internet as a result spreads the word wide but very thinly. Perhaps a tour of crowded recreational halls where hats get thrown in the air before a departure to steamy windowed pubs to plot the way forward over pints of stout is in order……. if only there were such places left.
Mark
Thanks, and I apologise for the time I spend distracting your household.
In fairness, the same happens here. My wife and sons are known to offer opinion on what I write. And it helps.
Best
Richard
Richard, what can I possibly add to all the congratulations and approvals for your tireless work already expressed by previous respondents? Only that your musings, conscience and determination not to let the bastards wear you down makes your blog my first port of call each morning once I’ve sorted the wheat from the chaff in my overnight e-mail.
I could not have more respect for you, not least because you give me reason to regain some hope. If that sounds soppy, so be it.
Nick
Much appreciated
Genuinely
I still am not sure why I write this blog unless it is just my way of trying to work out a way through the crap life throws at us all without getting too ground down by it all. If others like you appreciate that, well I am pleased.
Best
Richard
Congratulations on this evidence of the dispersal of your very relevant views and proposals. I recognise that it’s hard won, but it is badly needed.
As Nick James notes, there’s not much more that I can add that hasn’t already been said by others, Richard. But I will add one thought. For me your your blog is a superb illustration of why blogging is such a boon to democracy and twitter is such a disaster. The former is based on a technological innovation that can be used to effectively examine, discuss and debate the many complex issues that are part and parcel of the human condition and from that attempt to formulate ways forward – as you frequently do here. The latter is based on a technological gimmick that shrinks and restricts thought and debate and allows complex issues that are part and parcel of the human condition to be presented as tabloid headlines that should therefore be dealt with in simplistic, binary ways.
Of course, I know you are a twitter user as are many others. But for me that fact that a charlatan such as Trump to ride to electoral victory on the back of his twitter account, and is now set to govern by twitter, says it all. We have gone back to an age before the printing press, when “news” was simply whatever gossip circulated and whatever the town cryer shouted loudest.
Anyway, from a long-time reader of your blog, congratulations. I know you’ll keep up the good work. By god, we need it.
I admit my Twitter usage is falling: I give it much less emphasis now and I am not alone
The blog achieves more: the Twitter account is more a publicity mechanism now
And thanks….