Dods, the parliamentary publisher, has been around for 170 years and the 21st century seems a bit bewildering for them. Well aware that political blogs are eating them for breakfast, they commissioned an ICM/Dods poll to ascertain what is going on. They already knew that the leading political blogs have far more readers, so they decided to find out what the all-important MPs read online. The news was not what they wanted to hear, so Guido is happy to give it a bit of extra publicity..
MPs are :- % Aware of % Use Conservative Home 49 27 Guido Fawkes 45 14 Iain Dale 43 13 The House Magazine 41 8 Recess Monkey 22 3
Their flagship publication is the venerable House Magazine, which they have up until now claimed is “Independently identified as the most read weekly publication within the Palace of Westminster.” According to their own research, whilst MPs are roughly equally aware of the leading blogs and that parliament’s trade magazine is online, they are three times as likely to read ConservativeHome and almost twice as likely to read Guido and Iain Dale. Looks like they will now have to change that old claim…
UPDATE :
Somebody from Dods has been on to Guido whining that he hasn’t emphasised that it is the online offering being surveyed. Consider it now emphasised. In Guido’s experience most MPs throw the boring old magazine straight into the bin with the rest of the junk mail.
