politics posts

Mehdi Hasan, Senior Editor (Politics) for Britian's award-winning weekly magazine New Statesman and a leading political commentator in the UK, is joining HuffPost UK as its first Political Director. Just last week, Mehdi was named second most influential British journalist on Twitter and was listed as the UK's No. 2 blogger in 2011 by Total Politics magazine's in its list of the top-50 media bloggers. Starting in July 2012, he will host the AlJazeera talk show series, The Café.

Before joining New Statesman in 2009, Mehdi served as editor for news and current affairs for UK public broadcaster Channel 4. He also worked on Sky's breakfast show "Sunrise," the BBC's "Politics Show" and ITV's "The Jonathan Dimbleby Programme." He has also written for The Guardian, The Times and The Independent newspapers as a guest columnist and co-authored "Ed: The Milibands and the Making of a Labour Leader."

Mehdi is a talented and passionate writer and will make a fantastic director for our political team. Politics drills down into the minutia of everyone's day-to-day lives and with so much happening at both a national and global level, it couldn't be a better time to expand our team and the breadth of reports, news and blogs we offer to our growing audience. He joins the team in July.

HuffPost UK has grown nearly 50% since its launch last July and recently reached 5 million global UVs, according to comScore.

.@HuffPostUK Names Political Director @ns_mehdihasan aol.it/JrHITA

- AOL PR (@AOLPR) May 21, 2012

On the strength of the incredible original video produced in-house and in partnership with marquee production companies, AOL Video climbed to #5 in the overall video views chart in comScore's January rankings. Consumers are spending more time watching thanks to the breadth and volume across key categories like tech, fashion, food, home and autos.

January was also a big month in traffic for HuffPost Politics, HuffPost Green and HuffPost Black Voices*, which all earned number one comScore rankings. We had a total of sixteen properties that ranked in the top three for their respective comScore categories.

* AOL custom-built category for unique visitors, according to January 2012 comScore Media Metrix data

.@AolVideo Views Climb in January @comScore Rankings aol.it/wstEh7 $AOL

- AOL PR (@AOLPR) February 23, 2012

On Tuesday December 6th, some of the best known names in UK media took to the HuffPost soapbox to make themselves heard. The soapbox stood in prime position in Europe's largest shopping center, Westfield near the 2012 Olympic Park in East London, and the crowds gathered to listen to big names discuss hot topics. Amongst those who spoke were Mitch Winehouse, father of Amy Winehouse, who took to the box to discuss turning grief into positive action. Nick Leeson, who famously took down Barings Bank in the 1990s, spoke about encouraging the public to take control of their finances. Nancy Dell'Olio, who starred in this year's series of Strictly Come Dancing (the UK's Dancing with the Stars!) also took to the box to talk about women's battle with aging.

The event was covered extensively in the UK press, with coverage hitting The Telegraphand Contact Music. To learn more about the event click here.

The soapbox event celebrates The Huffington Post UK's role as a platform for blogging and sharing opinion. The site hosts blogs from a number of regular and guest contributors who take to the site to express their views on everything from politics to entertainment and technology.

Celebs Rant in the Name of @HuffPostUK aol.it/tEjeLO

- AOLPR (@AOLPR) December7, 2011

HuffPost Politics has reason to celebrate! According to comScore data, the site led all politics-focused news sites in September. According to comScore's press release:

"Interest in Political News sites spiked in September between President Obama's jobs plan announcement and the heating up of the Republican presidential primary battled. The category rose 12 percent to 35.4 million visitors. HuffPost Politics ranked #1 in the category with 9.9 million visitors (up 8 percent)."

Poynter highlights the win here: HuffPost Politics most-visited site for political news, outdraws CNN Politics, Politico.