[Malcolm Armsteen]

Love it or hate it - or probably both... a genuinely frustrating news outlet.

But successful, it seems, online. In fact more successful than the Mail, if UK-based hits are counted.

The Guardian website is the UK's most widely read daily newspaper site each month, with almost 8.2 million visitors, according to the latest figures released by the National Readership Survey (NRS) in its print and digital data (PADD) report.

The Daily Mail, which held the top spot for both website only and combined - print and online - readership in the last PADD report from the NRS, slipped to second place in terms of unique monthly visitors with 7.6 million, but maintained its position as the most widely read newspaper in terms of combined readership at 18.8 million readers a month.

Probably because it's a more balanced source and not populated by frothing, swivel-eyed loons.

That'll blow a few heads off shoulders at Dacre's Acres.

http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/nrs-gu ... 2/a553108/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[PaulOnBooks]

I wonder if the DM website's focus on US breasts is putting off UK visitors. It would be interesting to see more data.

[Winegums]

That's interesting...I wonder if people are starting to get fatigued by the mail. Certainly there's only so many times you can be 'outrageous' for the purpose of clickbait.

The racist nasty stuff the paper edition caries doesn't really fly much with the younger generation, and the gossip is done as well/better on other sites.

And, really, I think the Guardian is the easier site to use. It looks clean and professional whereas the mail is a bit tacky looking.

[Timbo]

I wonder if the DM website's focus on US breasts is putting off UK visitors. It would be interesting to see more data.

Hear hear. We want good old-fashioned 1980s British tits: big, doughy, pale and veiny. None of your modern American nonsense. Bring back 'Knave'.

[new puritan]

Pretty galling that even in 2013, Martin Kettle is still paid to give his opinions.

Naturally, there are options about what to do. The Conservatives could be much more Thatcherite if they weren't so aware of how unpopular that would be. Labour always has the Keynesian option of taxing and spending to boost the economy. But that won't do much to address the deficit, and there is no sign at all of a widespread public appetite for it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... h-politics" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Utterly, utterly dismal. The whole pro-Keynesian argument is that if you increase borrowing in the short term, the proceeds of growth allow you to reduce your deficit in the medium term (not to mention, y'know, boosting employment and living standards).

[youngian]

A trail of answered questions as the Mail would say. Are the same people visiting the different websites and what are the differences in content that are attracting hits. (Guardian for TV and movies and Sun for football for example)?

It should also be making comparisons to the BBC and other TV news website spin offs.

[new puritan]

Crack-induced fantasies from Will Hutton.

If only Britain had joined the euro

Inside the euro for the last decade, the economic and political debate would have necessarily moved on. Having won a historic referendum decisively affirming Britain's future in Europe, the Blair government would have had to think in European terms about how to produce, invest, innovate and export. Sure, there would have been problems. But Britain outside the euro in 2013, with endless spending cuts, the biggest fall in real wages for a century, 500,000 people relying on food banks, and a weak unbalanced economy, is hardly a land of milk and honey.

Emboldened by his referendum victory, Blair could have sacked Brown before the disastrous second phase of his chancellorship and lacklustre prime ministership. Blairism would have morphed into a new form of European social democracy, fashioning British-style stakeholder capitalism. UK politics would not have moved so decisively to the right, with conservatives preaching free-market Thatcherism while the left clings to a bastard Keynesianism – united only in their belief, against all the evidence including Britain's export performance, that floating exchange rates are a universal panacea.

Bonkers. It says a lot about that piece that the headline is the sanest bit.

[youngian]

I'm not a fan of the ECB's structure which is suited to Germany and the former DM zone countries. Would I like to be a high labour productivity DM zone country like Austria or the Netherlands? Yes.

And that is Hutton's point and that of other government's in the Euro who came to the conclusion that competitive devaluation was a dead end zero sum game that just bought stagflation.

I can easily see this scenario in the next few years- Sterling's value rapidly falls due to a lack of market confidence and is in need of a loan to prop it up. The government goes crawling to whoever will offer the most generous terms and finds the ECB is the only game in town.

The Pound is then pegged against the Euro and has to face strict criterea on borrowing and inflation to stabilise its value. Like the Danish Krone you are then effectively a de-facto Eurozone currency without any leverage to change the ECB's course on misguided austerity economics.

Political paradigms come and go very quickly and today's voice in the wilderness is tomorrow's wise prophet.
Just ask yourself where these massive confident Eurosceptic city brains (like the odious Terry Smith), who were never off the TV two years ago predicting Club Med's Euro exit, are now. Or why the likes of Paxman don't seem to be shouting at anyone and calling them bonkers who dared to challenge them.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Hutton has a bit of a thing about "stakeholder capitalism". According to Philip Augar, an ex-top banker and consistent critic of the City, when Blair made a speech about it, lots of rich people got upset and the idea promptly disappeared from speeches. Whether Blair meant it or was just following a fashion, I don't know. I don't know why Brown is blamed as the enemy of stakeholder capitalism.

It's quite funny that we're told by Cameron and all that it's great we're not in the Euro. That's basically admitting Britain couldn't cope in the first division, with Germany, Austria, Finland etc. While others care about the democratic arguments, Cameron and all probably don't.

[youngian]

It's quite funny that we're told by Cameron and all that it's great we're not in the Euro. That's basically admitting Britain couldn't cope in the first division

At best like France, a Crystal Palace or Norwich bouncing in and out.

[Tubby Isaacs]

We're below France, I'd say. Apparently they've got all these (by our standards) small cuts they could make but can't because they're French.

In fairness to the Guardian, this article is, I suppose, a response to Larry Elliott's "we'd be dead if joined the Euro" stuff, which he lays on a bit thick.

[PaulOnBooks]

The ubiquitous Nigel Farage, leader of a protest party with zero MPs and a manifesto comprised entirely of bits of old Jeremy Clarkson jokes

Lack of balance on Question Time panels

[youngian]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/video/2 ... -nsa-video" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Lou Reed's shock at Edward Snowden's NSA revelations – Velvet Underground legend Lou Reed holds a rare press conference at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, where he voices his concern about the NSA's surveillance methods as revealed by the Guardian.

Nothing against most of Lou Reed's music (not featuring Metallica), but why is the Guardian reporting his opinions on NSA surveillance? They would be the first to sneer if a shitrag like the Mail or the Sun was reporting Simon Cowell or Kerry Katona's opinions on the crucial issues of the day.

[new puritan]

This is just crap, although to be fair the sub-editors are to blame for the headline.

Tories win over Generation Y while losing touch with older voters

The Conservative party under David Cameron has seen a 100% rise in support from younger people, while its popularity has decreased among the old, according to the first substantial analysis of the UK's generational voting intentions.

The party has seen support rise among so-called Generation Y – those born after 1980, so aged up to 33 – according to Ipsos MORI, which has analysed more than half a million interviews over a 17-year period.

It found that before Cameron took over as leader in 2005, the party's support was deeply stratified between age cohorts: 30% of the prewar generation favoured the Tories, compared with just 10% of Generation Y. Under Cameron though, support from the latter now stands at 20.5%, while the party has lost some of its older supporters, who may have decamped to Ukip or become floating voters.

So the Tories have 'won over' young voters by claiming, er, 20% of the vote. As a twentysomething I do get a bit pissed off at constantly being told by the media how selfish my generation is. We aren't the ones voting for these cunts.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Shiv Malik...