Welcome back to the third of our four articles featuring the most read posts on the site in 2020. If you missed the earlier posts, posts 16-20 can be found here, and posts 11-15 here…

June saw the tearing down and immersion of the Edward Colston statue in Bristol. At number 10, Chris Bowers wrote for us suggesting that supporting what was, in strictness, a criminal act, was a troubling step. It would be fair to say that opinions were split, and the debate about when, or if, it is appropriate to break the law in order to advance a cause ran on for three days.

Our ninth most read piece came from our Wednesday Day Editor, Tahir Maher, who may not have expected his piece in mid-April justifying lockdown to spin off into a debate on the economics of the national debt. It is one of the charms of LDV that the comments threads can occasionally stray quite a long way from the primary topic…

At number 8, Paul Walter reviewed the findings of the General Election Review and was as honest as the authors were. I’m not a campaigner, and I wondered about some of the strategy applied, but these things aren’t usually quite so blunt. Will we learn the lessons for next time, or will we fight the last war again?

Oddly, the seventh most read piece was actually published in August 2019, when Seth Thevoz skewered Labour claims to have given Britain the National Health Service. The truth, as is so often the case, is rather more nuanced.

And, last but not least for today, Paul Walter’s commentary on a piece written by Ailbhe Rae in the New Statesman on the thoughts of Liberal Democrat MPs, published in mid-January whilst the Party was still trying to overcome its disappointment at the General Election, came in at number 6. As a precursor of the General Election Review, it was an interesting, if perhaps unsurprising, tale.

Tomorrow, I’ll cover the five most read posts on the site, so do join me then…