Stephen Doughty, the Labour MP for Cardiff South and Penarth, is complaining that the government has spent some £5 million on advertising in the Tory press. By which he really means advertising in the popular press, the Daily Mail and The Sun get the most advertising revenue because they sell the most papers. Doughty says “I personally don’t think it’s appropriate to see extensive government advertising alongside homophobic headlines or the sort of language we last saw in the 1930s.” The snowflake left are rallying around advertising boycotts of publications they don’t like. 

Guido took a look at the same data in a different way; how much does it cost to to reach an individual reader? On that basis the government overpays to reach a Guardian reader (£2.15), 12 times what it pays to reach a Mirror reader (£0.18). Now Whitehall may have different objectives, Guido suspects it is advertising for more diversity officers on Guardian’s job pages and telling Mirror readers to claim benefits, stop drinking and eating sugar on the tabloid’s pages. Or possibly they are just over-paying to reach broadsheet readers…