SATURDAY, JULY 2, 2011
Saturday Seven Up
This week kicked off with a kicking for Keynesians as the evidence mounts that Obama’s $787 billion stimulus programme has failed to hold down unemployment. Balls should take note.
The hunting of Huhne is ongoing, the police have now got possession of the tape of Vicky Pryce alleging he asked her to pervert the course of justice over his penalty points.
Monday we revealed in full the secret Shale memowritten before he died. Guido’s personal favourite story of the week concerned the starlet Lindsay Lohan’s forthright views on monetary policy.
Tuesday we went hammer and tongs after Johann Hari, the pious pontificating plagiarist. Wednesday we were the first to publish online Hari’s mea culpa and allegations that he was still lying, we also rounded-up the unravelling Hari story. Thursday saw strikes and we drew attention to one set of public workers with gold plated pensions: MPs. Friday we were the first to report the Twitter storm over Guardian contributor Kia Abdullah Laughing At the Deaths of Gap Year Kids – because they had double-barrelled names.
We finished the week with the revelation of the first time Hari got sackedfor making things up. This one will run and run…
Guy News highlight of the week was ambushing Chris Huhne at his first public event, asking him if he will resign if charged. Worth watching for the amusement factor…
This week 87,186 visitors made 256,826 visits to view 394,628 pages. June saw atotal of 204,247 visitors make over 1.6 million visits which together with feed readers made for some 2.5 million page views. We’re Britain’s #1 political blog because we break the stories stories they don’t want you to read. The top stories last week in order of popularity were:
- Kia Abdullah Laughs At Death of Gap Year Kids
- Weird Ed Repeats Himself Over and Over
- Dirty Hari: Johann Story Rapidly Unraveling
- Cut and Paste Hari
- When Hari Met Reality:
The First Time Hari Got Sacked for Making Things Up - Full Text of Hari’sMea Culpa
- Revealed in Full: That Secret Shale Memo to Cameron
You’re either in front of Guido, or you are behind…
Ashcroft Shuffles Pack: Loss Making PoliticsHome Sold for £0.00
++ Merges With Loss Making Political Publisher Dods’ ePolitix ++
Dods plc, publishers of ePolitix.com and the House Magazine, announced this morning that it had acquired the business and assets of PoliticsHome.com, the political news aggregation website now run by Paul Waugh. The sellers were Political Investments Limited and Politics Home Limited, companies which Ashcroft controls. The price paid was zilch.
PoliticsHome has annual revenues of approximately £100,000 a year and lost £500,000 last year. Rolled up losses on the balance sheet amount to some £700,000. Waugh’s former home,The Evening Standard, reports that the deal could be worth £2 million. In theory true, but in reality that is if, and only if, certain optimistic synergistic revenue goals are met. It should be remembered that loss making Dods plc is itself also 23% owned by Ashcroft. This is basically an all-paper transaction with Ashcroft shuffling loss making assets around. No money is actually changing hands…
ConservativeHome is not in this deal, its losses are subsidised directly by Ashcroft through Political Investments Limited. Over on the left-hand side of the blogosphere the unions now fund LabourList, LeftFootForward andPoliticalScrapbook directly, which is why they read like press releases from the TUC. Keen analysts of the online political sphere will note that there is now only one politics-only website pure play that makes money as a commercial proposition. Profits which make us proudly independent…
T E Utley quoted by Peter Oborne…
Why I’m Conservative – Toby Young
Perfectly Proper to Humiliate Ed – Damon Green
Interviewer Explains Why He Exposed Weird Ed - Guardian
Does Hari Even Meet His Interviewees? – Guy Walters
SpAd Who’s Who – Civil Service Network
Pupil Dies As School Shut By Strike – Mail
End of Year MP Awards - Total Politics
Bad Week For the Left – Billy Manning
Shale’s Death a Blow to Detoxification – FT
Back the Cap - CityAM
Kelvin Joins the Mail – Guardian
Two Thirds Think Say Don’t Criminalise Users - Mark Reckons
DSK Case Close to Collapse - New York Times
Isn’t Huhne Meant to be a Trained Economist? – Tim Worstall
The Cabinet’s Greatest Success Story – Quentin Letts
Thank God for Rupert Murdoch – Kelvin MacKenzie
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