Fraser Nelson

Sales of The Spectator broke through an all-time high three years ago, and we’ve kept growing ever since. The latest industry figures, for the first half of the year, are out today – and I’m delighted to say that it’s our best-ever start to any year. Our worldwide sales averaged 71,102 in the first half of this year, up 1,939 from the same period last year. I’d also like to share some other figures. Evening Blend, our daily newsletter, has now broken through 40,000 subscribers (you can sign up free to it here) and it’s growing fast, on account of it being the best evening newsletter anywhere. We offer it free to those who register for the website, and reading the Blend every day makes new registrants more likely to subscribe.

The Spectator’s sales are at a record high and rising, with growth driven by the website. Our model is pretty simple: we offer a few articles for free, then invite people to subscribe if they want more. We’re not seeking to maximise clicks, but are looking to grow our family of readers. We’ve made decent progress on pretty rudimentary tech; we now seek to make a major investment, and need someone to lead this next stage. As with any publication, increasing subscribers will mean publishing good articles, arguments and analysis of a quality not to be found in any other weekly.

There has never been a better time to join The Spectator. Our sales are at a 190-year high, with growth driven by readers who get to know us through the website. The growth is continuing, and we’re creating some new positions. The first is that of an assistant digital editor whose duties will include: Being across the news agenda, spotting issues that would make for a good Coffee House blog or Steerpike (and liaising with the writers) Editing copy: fact checking, proof reading, ensuring articles are legally sound, picture research and (crucially) sharp headline writing. Using WordPress on a daily basis Writing effective social media lines Basic photoshop, uploading and embedding relevant audio and video clips.

At 3pm tomorrow, a thin blue line will be drawn across my living room. My wife will be supporting her motherland, Sweden. I’ll be rooting for my adopted country, England. We’ll have food and drink from both countries on either side – but the question is who gets custody of the kids for those 90 minutes. It’s a harder question than I had thought. Alex, 10, and Dominic, 8, are – in my opinion – as English as Y-fronts and Tizer. Born and bred. They go to an English state primary school, have English friends, but they don’t seem at all torn about wanting England to lose. So I thought I’d place them in the English half of the living room, complete with flags. But they are protesting.

Today’s newspapers have managed to catch up with our cover story from last month: Theresa May has agreed to a massive cash splurge on the NHS. Rather than wait until the spending review to announce this, there will be a political stunt presenting the cash as a 70th birthday gift to the health service. But it is instructive nonetheless: it underlines how this is not a serious assessment of the health service’s needs but a politically motivated gesture. Once it would have been opposed by the fiscal hawks in the Tory party but now these people tend to be keener the Brexit bus pledge of £350m a week for the NHS being honoured – which, by the time of the next election, it will be. The biggest question is how to fund this.

A fortnight before Philip Hammond delivered his last Budget, the chief executive of the NHS gave a speech making the case for more funding. Simon Stevens had brought with him picture of a Vote Leave poster, promising £350 million a week for the health service, which he showed to his audience. What a good idea, he said. He wasn’t coming out as a Brexiteer, but he did think the Leavers had a point about giving an extra £350 million a week to the National Health Service. In fact, he went so far as to say that the ‘public want to see’ this promise honoured. And if politicians don’t cough up?

The parliamentary majority for keeping a free press in Britain fell to just nine votes this evening. The attempt to bring back another Leveson Report to harass the press was defeated by a dangerously thin margin. Quite something, given that the ideas under discussion would not have looked out of place in Orban’s Hungary. The point of another Leveson Inquiry would have been to harass newspapers in general and Rupert Murdoch's titles (and staff) in particular. The other amendment was on the cards was even worse: forcing newspapers to pay the legal bills of anyone who wanted to sue them, whether or not they were in the wrong. This is an extraordinary proposal for any democracy.

Entries are coming in quickly for this year’s Spectator’s (paid) internship scheme, which this year we’re arranging by category: research, editing, data/tech, social media. Such is the quality of the applications received so far that we’re adding a new category: the political mischief internship. The tests are tough because we're serious. e’re doing this because we the magazine is expanding and we need recruits, or people to contribute on a freelance basis. We’re looking for someone who knows their Ben Bradshaws from Ben Bradleys. Someone digitally literate – who can file an FOI, navigate Photoshop and set up a Companies House alert. Someone who has a sense of humour, and a developed sense of the absurd.

The overseas reaction to the case of Alfie Evans has been quite striking. It’s not that the NHS treated him poorly, or that anyone seriously believes that the 23-month-old boy could have recovered from his brain damage. The shock comes from the fact that English law can define the ‘best interests’ of a child as dying, overruling the parents who wished to take up the offer of treatment at a hospital in Rome. This Bloomberg article sums up much of the US reaction:- ‘It really is this simple. The British state has decided that it is the baby’s best interest to die, and it is trying to ensure that he dies expeditiously. It is overriding parental rights in the process.