…as the Scottish Government releases its Brexit impact paper.
(Panelbase, Scottish adults, fieldwork mid-December 2017)
The latest Wings Over Scotland annual readership stats are in:
2017 average monthly unique visitors: 303,719
2016 monthly average: 286,162
2015 monthly average: 290,522
(pre-2015 stats from different provider not comparable on a like-for-like basis)
That’s a 6% increase year-on-year, which is pretty respectable going for the dullest 12 months in Scottish politics since this site started (and particularly given the challenging circumstances we had to operate in for the whole of the autumn).
We also found out we were by some distance the most popular website of the Scottish Government, which was nice:
Thank you for all your support, your financial backing, your tip-offs and your company. 2018 is shaping up to be somewhat more interesting, so we hope you’ll stay with us.
It is with the heaviest of hearts, readers, that we must report to you that Gordon Brown has done an intervention again.
With a new book to sell, the purposeless former Chancellor and Prime Minister who led the UK into a catastrophic financial crisis that’s now entering its second decade has put on his hindsight goggles and made a whole series of bewildering proclamations after the event, which have – naturally – been dutifully received and repeated by the fawning Scottish press like God handing down the Ten Commandments to Moses.
Percentage of A&E patients in Scotland in 2017 to date seen within four hours (target 95%), described by Labour MSP Colin Smyth as a “deeply troubling” figure: 94%
Percentage of the vote on which Mr Smyth was elected as an MSP in 2016: 8.9%
Number of references to “UK”, “Britain” or “British” in this story about salmon: 17
Number of references to “Scotland” or “Scottish”: 1 (in a quote)
Percentage of “UK” salmon industry that’s actually in Scotland: 96.3%
A reader sent us an interesting snippet of information today.
That seemed a startling fact, so we looked into it. And it’s true.
Today’s Daily Record covers the story we mentioned yesterday about a report from a Scottish Labour campaign group making the pretty factually-uncontestable point that the branch office’s dismal strategy in last month’s election held the UK party back.
And it made the Record really angry.
A very brief stat post, as our “regular” cartoonist is on holiday YET AGAIN.
Wings had just over 300,000 unique readers in June, despite taking the last couple of weeks off ourselves, bringing the monthly average readership for the first half of 2017 to 346,226. That’s 55,532 up on the same period last year, or a 19% increase.
Rarely can a flush have been more busted.
This one definitely looks dodgy.
We, um… we don’t think they DID show that, Kez.
When our dear old pal the Scottish Labour super-goon Duncan Hothersall tweeted this earlier today, we just couldn’t resist a wee fact-check. We love to see people take the moral high ground, but numbers are fluid these days and you can’t be too careful.
So exactly how “accurate” are we talking here?
There’s an interesting article in today’s Sunday Times, about a cunning plan by which the Scottish Government could bypass the veto of Presiding Officer Ken Macintosh and legislate for a second independence referendum – forcing a direct showdown in which the UK government would have to openly trample the Scottish Parliament and its electoral mandate.
If pursued, it would reopen the current absurd argument in which the Unionist parties claim that the Scottish Government has no “mandate” to pursue a second referendum, despite mandates arising solely from the ability to win votes in Parliament.
(If an absolute majority for one party was required to pass legislation, Holyrood would of course have done absolutely nothing for most of its life.)
And that reminded us that our last Panelbase opinion poll was so vast we still hadn’t finished releasing the results of it, including one rather surprising finding.
Actually, mighty King Leonidas is understating here. It was 311% in the end.
Wings Over Scotland 2017 fundraiser total: £140,047.
Wings Over Scotland is a (mainly) Scottish political media digest and monitor, which also offers its own commentary. (More)
