Today, the Conservative Post turns six.
Six years ago, on 15 September 2020, we published our first stories with one very simple mission, to put some positive press back into Britain.
Today, we have published 12,751 news stories. More than five million unique visitors from across the world have come to read them. Our stories now regularly generate more than one million impressions a month.
And somehow, what began as a modest online newspaper with an unfashionably optimistic belief that Britain was still a country worth celebrating has grown into something far bigger than I ever imagined.
We have reported on world-class British science, industry and innovation. We have celebrated our Armed Forces, our farmers, our entrepreneurs, our sporting heroes and the extraordinary achievements of ordinary people. We have championed free speech, free markets, low taxes, small government, individual liberty and the belief that our country should govern itself.
We have also never been afraid to hold those in power to account.
But perhaps the thing I love most about our birthday is the date on which the Conservative Post was born.
15 September is Battle of Britain Day.
On this day in 1940, the RAF fought one of the decisive battles of the Battle of Britain, as the Luftwaffe launched a huge assault against Britain. Against extraordinary odds, our pilots took to the skies and defended this island.
Churchill immortalised them as “the Few”.
It is difficult to imagine a more fitting birthday for a newspaper founded on a love of Britain.
We would never compare what we do to the courage and sacrifice of that generation, but the values their story represents, courage, determination, resilience, freedom and an absolute refusal to give up on this country, are values we will always celebrate.
Six years on, that little flame we lit in 2020 is still burning.
Along the way, the Conservative Post has fought more than 25 campaigns, helped build an extraordinary community of patriots and helped launch the Great British PAC, a cross-party patriotic movement bringing together people from across the political spectrum who believe Britain is worth fighting for. And none of it could have happened without you.
To every person who has read one of our 12,751 stories, shared an article, signed a petition, answered a survey, volunteered, sent us a tip, challenged us, encouraged us, or simply clicked onto the Conservative Post over these past six years, thank you.
Five million unique visitors is an astonishing number. Behind every single one is a person who chose to spend a few minutes with us, and I will never take that for granted.
Thank you too to our contributors and volunteers, and to Mike Rouse, our indispensable tech genius and so often the voice of reason behind the scenes. You have helped turn an idea into something very real.
And, as ever, my greatest thanks go to my family. To my mother, Pat Bullivant, who somehow finds the time, despite running her own newspaper business, to encourage, advise and support me through everything, thank you.
And to my father, Chris Bullivant, the cleverest man I know and the real mastermind behind so much of what we do. For six years he has spent countless evenings finding stories, spotting angles the rest of us have missed, questioning decisions, offering advice and reminding me why newspapers matter. The Conservative Post would simply not be what it is without him.
When we started in 2020, I could never have imagined writing a sixth-birthday message saying that more than five million people around the world had visited our newspaper.
But I can promise you this. We are nowhere near finished.
There are more stories to tell, more battles to fight, more British achievements to celebrate, more people in power to hold to account and, above all, more reasons to remind ourselves that this extraordinary collection of islands remains the greatest country on Earth.
So, on Battle of Britain Day, we raise a glass to the Few, to the generations who defended the freedoms we enjoy today, and to everyone who continues to believe in Britain.
Thank you for six wonderful years. Here’s to the lucky seventh.
And, to borrow the motto of the Royal Air Force:
Per Ardua Ad Astra.
Through adversity to the stars.
Claire Bullivant
Founder and Editor
The Conservative Post
