Not so, Guido

By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982

UPDATE: Paul Staines tells me his videos will be nightly during the election campaign, with a number of reporters in the field. Uh oh…

Guido Fawkes’ videos are getting better, but his claim yesterday that they’re five times as influential as the Labour Party’s is, shall we say, hopeful.

Guido says his Guy News montages reach an average audience of 15,485, while Labour’s reach just 3,066.

That might be right according to his own statistics, but Against the Odds has been viewed more than 14,000 times since it was first aired at conference and its successor, and Fighters and Believers, has been viewed over 12,000 in less than a month.

The videos were also shared with over 4,000 individuals in Labour’s Facebook group and 8,000 on Twitter as well as the party’s much larger mailing list and LabourList’s own 3,500 strong Lunchtime email, which you can join by adding your email address to the top right of this page.

More to the point, Fighters and Believers was aired on national television, reaching a potential audience of millions. I doubt even Paul Staines is quite at that stage.

I think the message is: don’t believe everything you read on the internet.