The biggest posts of 2014, part one

2014 is coming to a close, and 2015 is on the horizon, so we wanted to take a look back over some of the biggest LabourList posts from our biggest year ever. We’ve had over 1.1 million unique readers in 2014, reading around 8 million pages – and we’re expecting next year to be even bigger still.

Here’s what you’ve been reading:

The Liveblogs

LabourList’s much-loved liveblogs reached new heights in 2014, attracting hundreds of thousands of readers – even the ones we ran on slightly niche subjects, such as Labour’s National Policy Forum, the by-elections for Heywood & Middleton, Wythenshawe & Sale East, and the South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner were incredibly popular.

For the referendum on Scottish independence, we ran a liveblog covering the final days on the campaign in great detail, culminating in all the news from the night. With the election result in Scotland next year looking unpredictable, having everything from this historic result preserved in one place could come in handy.

However, our biggest liveblog of the year was the Local and European Elections one from May. Split into two parts, the first half covering the polling day and the local election results ran for an intensive, sleepless 40 hour stretch and over 300 updates. Then, after a day and a half recovery, we were back to deliver the news from the European votes. Both nights had their ups and downs for Labour, and if you want an idea of what LabourList will look like in May next year, have a look at this – and then times it by ten.

That Gordon Brown speech

It nearly didn’t happen. With the LabourList team split between the office and the campaign trail, no one immediately saw Gordon Brown’s lunchtime speech the day before the Scottish referendum. Spotting some praise on Twitter from Labour No activists who’d been there, and the decision was made to track it down.

A tubthumper that changed the debate in the last 24 hours, it won plaudits from across the political spectrum – and the video has now been watched almost 450,000 times on YouTube.

A tale of two Times

It was the best of Times, it was the worst of Times. Ritually checking the front pages before bed came in handy in March when we realised The Times had made a subtle amendment to their splash. Can you spot the difference?

The pro-choice majority

Sunny Hundal’s article about the use of intimidatory tactics by protesters outside of abortion clinics was initially very popular. However, the piece went stratospheric following Hundal’s video of a pregnant woman slamming clinic protesters in south London, and then again when Labour attempted to take issue on the subject, as we reported last week. From LabourList post to Labour policy in just over a month.

Quotable Tony Benn

“We are not just here to manage capitalism but to change society and to define its finer values.”

When Tony Benn passed away on March 14th this year, LabourList commemorated one of the Labour Party’s most eloquent debaters with ten of his greatest quotes. Relive them here.

Tomorrow we’ll bring you 5 more of our biggest posts from 2010.