The New Statesman’s editor Jason Cowley has made George Eaton joint deputy editor with Tom Gatti. Congratulations to Stephen Bush who is promoted to political editor. Cowley says: “These appointments are to prepare for a planned expansion of the New Statesman in 2019. We have had another successful year…” Losses last year were £477,271.

An accidentally naughty page break in this week’s New Statesman, as an interview with Ruth Davidson reads:

“On education, she wants to encourage innovation by giving head…”

“…teachers autonomy over budgets…” obviously…

H/T @jondharvey

Shock hackette Abi Wilkinson has got the attention-seeking bug. Fresh from calling for a 100% inheritance tax earlier this week, she has now written a really quite unpleasant piece for the New Statesman about John McCain, who was recently diagnosed with brain cancer. Headlined “This is no time for civility towards Republicans – even John McCain”, Abi writes:

“Increasingly, I’m coming round to the idea that incivility isn’t merely justifiable, but actively necessary… It’s unpleasant to wish that John McCain was dead—but is it illegitimate to note that, had he been unable to vote, legislation that will kill tens of thousands of others might have been blocked?”

Charming, and also doubly stupid. McCain last night torpedoed the Obamacare repeal bill.

She trolls on, quoting Engels and John McDonnell on “social murder”, comparing McCain and other Republican politicians to killers:

“In normal murder cases, few people would even begin to argue that killers deserve to be treated with respect. Most us would avoid lecturing victims’ on politeness and calm, rational debate, and would recognise any anger and hate they feel towards the perpetrator as legitimate emotion.”

This article is obviously complete drivel. It is designed to shock, to seek attention, to outrage, to get clicks. Abi is the left-wing equivalent of Raheem, Milo or Katie Hopkins, she doesn’t really have anything clever or interesting to say and probably doesn’t believe her own BS, but knows there’s a short-lived career in writing nasty, clickbait comment pieces. Sad…

The anti-New Statesman protestors have noticed New Statesman political editor @georgeeaton who is refusing to give them 30pages of coverage. pic.twitter.com/AIlpwbd2j4

— Jim Waterson (@jimwaterson) April 6, 2017

Staggers pol-ed George Eaton appears to be stuggling to keep a straight face. What happened to “we are his media”?

In a move straight out of the Chavista playbook Momentum supporters are organising a demo tonight to complain about the New Statesman’s anti-Corbyn coverage. The Facebook event says 80 people are planning to go. Guido understands that staff have been emailed and told to go home early…

Intimidating publications and journalists with demonstrations is a hallmark of Latin American leftists propping up failing regimes e.g. Venezuela. This type of Red Fascism will be the future of the Labour Party as the civil war kicks off properly…

New Statesman editor Jason Cowley has been boasting to anyone who’ll listen about how his magazine’s print circulation is at a four decade high. Last week Cowley crowed to the BBC’s Amol Rajan:

“In an era of fake news, people are realising that good journalism is worth spending money on. While much of the liberal media has been struggling to survive in a declining market dominated by powerful media groups, the New Statesman has not merely held its position but expanded dramatically”

Delve into the Statesman’s ABC certificate, however, and it becomes clear they are cooking the books…

Only 68.6% of the Statesman’s circulation is “actively purchased” – this is remarkably low and well below its competitors. Put another way, the Statesman gives away 31.4% of its copies for free. They might have their highest circulation for 40 years, but they are giving one in three copies away for no charge…

Compared to their rivals, the Statesman is significantly fiddling its figures. The Spectator gives away just 11.9% of its circulation for free – fewer than 1 in 8 copies. 15% of the Economist’s circulation is given away for free. The Week gives a quarter of its copies away for free. 0.1% of Private Eye’s circulation are freebies. The Statesman’s addiction to giveaways stands out – and helps them massively manipulate their headline circulation figure.

Cowley’s boast last week claimed “In an era of fake news, people are realising that good journalism is worth spending money on”. This itself is fake – a third of the Statesman’s print readers don’t spend any money – not counting that it is also free online, whereas rivals like The Economist and The Spectator have online paywalls. “In an era of fake news”, surely the Statesman should be more honest…