You read it here first

Alistair Darling’s enthusiastic endorsement of David Miliband came as no surprise to The Slog. Two months ago we exclusively revealed the bond between the two men, and how it had come about.

The deal is very simply that if Miliband major wins, Darling gets a heavyweight Shadow post. As we said some weeks back, Clerical Ali never meant any of that guff about returning to the back benches.

More and more people are discovering that when it comes to economics, finance, politics and sport, the future’s very often in The Slog. The site now averages 1800 hits per day, just over a thousand of whom are core loyalists. In addition, our US readership has quintupled, and European fans make up 20% of all hits. We’re also getting increasing interest from Asia (after the Pru/AIA debacle) and our Australian following has more than doubled.

Before this gets too pompous, especial thanks go to those early adopters who both spread the word – and stayed loyal during the battle to demonstrate the madness of King Gordon. And as ever, thanks are due to the number of sites who regularly give The Slog links and RSS running feeds on their home ground.