Another landmark, of sorts…

No sooner had we clocked up our first 10,000 hits on this Blog then we reached another landmark of sorts when yesterday, we topped 1,000 hits on the day – 1,109 to be exact. This was largely due to an unsolicited but very welcome testimonial from London-based David Carr on the blog samizdata, who wrote in such glowing terms that we blush as we reproduce it here:

I cannot recommend the EU Referendum Blog highly enough. They dissect and analyse the absurdities and the cant of the European Union in meticulous and compelling detail. Right now, it is the most important blog in Britain (after Samizdata, of course!).

Today, however, hits have continued at a record rate, not least as a result of links placed on other blogs, some from unexpected sources such as Kim du Toit in the United States, and some from less unexpected but nonetheless welcome sources such as James Hammerton.

Others came from writers who are proving to be durable allies Iain Murray and others still from search engines and still more from entries in on-line encyclopaedias.

Yet, despite this widening net of referees, by far the bulk came as "direct hits", either through world of mouth, or returning visitors who have no doubt stored our URL in their "favourite places".

This coming referendum campaign will break several records, not least for being probably the longest plebicite campaign in history – unless you know different – but it will also be the first such campaign in the UK in which the internet plays a significant part. And we believe the "blog" – already revolutionising political discourse in the United States - will play a major and powerful part. We have already discussed the power of the internet in this context, and you might like to revisit our post on the subject click here.

Thus, while the official "no" campaign is still picking its staff, thinking about choosing the carpets for its new offices and not yet stocking up on paper clips, we feel somewhat vindicated in our judgment in starting up this blog, and in investing the time to get it going. It may be a long campaign, but it is also going to be dirty and bitter, so we felt we needed a head start.

Thanks to you, the readers, we feel we have it.