In spite of my enforced inactivity for the last 2 or 3 months, 2013 was quite a year for the SKWAWKBOX, with some 450,000 reads. I’m truly grateful to you all for visiting and/or helping to spread the word, and I hope it’s done some small amount of good in the fight against the disinformation we’re fed every day by the government and its media allies.
The most read article was the original post about the fake DWP test inflicted under threat of sanction on thousands of unemployed people, as this was picked up by the Guardian, Huff Post and others, but I think the most important was the seminal article on the fictitious mortality rates at Stafford Hospital, as this led to a series of posts and revelations that highlighted the government’s central media tactic for attacking our absolutely-sane love and respect for the UK’s greatest institution, the NHS. The attack continues and it’s as essential as ever to draw attention to it.
Thanks once again to all my readers and supporters who helped put the SKWAWKBOX on the media map in 2013. I’ll resume normal service as early as possible in 2014 and am already on the trail of a couple of stories that could be explosive if the details pan out.
May you have a healthy, happy and prosperous (in every sense that matters) 2014 – and may we all work successfully toward a 2015 that is free from May onward of our malignant excuse for a government.
God bless.
Here’s an excerpt:
The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 450,000 times in 2013. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 19 days for that many people to see it.
Thank you for your latest posting. I hope life is treating you well as the two campaigns you mentioned were really important and I agree with you particularly about the misinformation about preventable deaths. I thought of you last night when I trawled the Honours List, which contained a good friend as well as Julie B
best wishes for a healthy and calmer 2014 Jean
which one?
Heres to a happy and successful New Year and with grateful thanks for all of your work.
Thank you for your efforts in 2013 and a Happy and successful New Year.
I see the Tories Friend the awful Julie of Stafford has been rewarded with a useless honour.
Thanks Steve; no doubt you have seen who has been awarded C.B.E -[J. Bailey]-for services to the Tory Party …
Exactly. Such awards are often more about usefulness to the PTB than about merit.
I’ve missed your blog & my heart gave a little jump when your email popped up to say you had added something to it.
Hope you don’t leave it too long before getting back in the driving seat – we need investigative journalism to expose the harm this govt is behind.
Happy New Year to you Steve,
Thank you for all you have done, Steve. You’re a good man.
Which is why, over at Flythenest, I have beatified you and your new moniker is St.Steve of Walker.
We are all looking forward to any new posts from you – and I hope you enjoyed your break from it all.
Lmao – thank you very much, I’m honoured! Sorry I haven’t been there in a while – I’ll try to do better.
Steve, wishing all the best in the new year for you and yours, and many thanks for the work you have done this year
Fantastic going! Have another fantastic and happy New Year!
I’ve missed your blog Steve. Thanks for all your hard work. Happy New Year to you & your family
Happy New Year, Steve. Am looking forward to any further stories that you are working on at the moment – hope they pan out so that we may know the truth!!
Thank you for everything Steve, It will not be easy for any of us in the years to come, especially for some-one trying to to make a living whilst researching the labyrinth of government machinations; protected by the corporate media.
Hoping you have a happy and successful new year, we all need you and have faith in you.
Happy New Year. Look forward to more revelations. There are many people in Stafford grateful for your efforts and it gives hope – such an important commodity when under threat. Evidence based reality is at least some sort of corrective. Thanks for your very important New Year thought i.e. you are not going away!
picking on a terminally ill NHS doctor is not actually going down well steve….
You’ll have to be a lot clearer what you’re talking about.
moderate away chummy,….
I don’t censor comment. Just too busy to write at the moment, let alone tend to your contributions when it suits you.
^there had to be one, didn’t there?
Happy New Year, Steve. Finding your blog was a huge eye opener for me in 2013; I think ephemerid posted a link to it in the Guardian and away I went. I’m almost an activist now! Hope all goes well for you in 2014 and look forward to future articles to make my blood boil!
Thank you – and to know I’ve ‘activated’ anyone is massive!
I think you have ‘activated’ a number of people Steve – I, too, came across your blog in 2013 and it opened my eyes to so many of the mis-truths being promulgated by the media, the Tory government and goodness knows who else. Happy activating for 2014!!
By the way, forgot to mention there was an article in The Guardian yesterday by Andy Burnham basically saying that if we don’t stop the Tories in 2015 then most of their “improvements” to the NHS will be impossible to turn around. At the moment there is still hope if the Tories are not re-elected.
Impecunious but enthusiastic local fights to maintain services are going to be necessary under any government since the ruling and chattering classes have such a poor understanding of the needs of ordinary people. But I certainly agree that a labour or lab/Lib government is hugely preferable to a continuation of the current coalition or a Conservative majority – that hardly bears thinking about. I hope and pray that Mr Milliband and Mr Burnham have it in mind to beat the government over the head with the NHS and give us all a real choice come the election – and that ordinary people realise the power they have when it comes to a general election – and … can see beyond the drivel and misinformation they will inevitably be served up at the time.