The best of The Spectator in 2014

2014 has been a fantastic year for the The Spectator online. Over the last 12 months, 13 million people have visited 40 million pages on this website. Our Scottish referendum coverage attracted record-breaking traffic — with so many people visiting this site, we had to double our server capacity to cope with the number of readers.

From freedom of speech and ambulance crises to sex and memes, the most read pieces of the last year are a diverse bunch. The lists below of top ten magazine and blog pieces show off the wide-ranging good taste of Spectator readers.

From everyone at 22 Old Queen Street, we wish you a very happy new year. Thank you for visiting Coffee House and the rest of our website in 2014. 2015 is set to be an exhilarating year and we look forward to having you along for the ride.

From the magazine:

1. Free speech is so last century. Today’s students want the ‘right to be comfortable’ – Brendan O’Neill

2. Porn-agains: meet the middle-aged men – and women – warped by internet porn – Cosmo Landesman

3. Oscar Pistorius has received a Draconian sentence (yes, really) – Barometer

4. The martyrdom of Mark Steyn – James Delingpole

5. The slow death of free speech – Mark Steyn

6. Is it really abuse just to look at Jennifer Lawrence’s naked pictures? – Hugo Rifkind
7. Global warming’s glorious ship of fools – Mark Steyn

8. As a doctor, I’d rather have HIV than diabetes – Max Pemberton 

9. Revealed: The hidden crisis in Britain’s ambulance services – Mary Wakefield
10. Italy’s in terminal decline, and no one has the guts to stop it – Nicholas Farrell

From Coffee House and the blogs:

1. The menace of memes: how pictures can paint a thousand lies – Isabel Hardman

2. Ten handy phrases for bluffing your way through the Ukraine crisis – Freddy Gray

3. London’s pro-Palestine rally was a disgusting anti-Semitic spectacle – Douglas Murray

4. Why Britain is poorer than any US state, other than Mississippi – Fraser Nelson

5. Why I am voting No – Alex Massie

6. Nigel Farage’s car crash interview on LBC – Sebastian Payne

7. Now that Richard Dawkins is attacking Muslims and feminists, the atheist Left suddenly discover he’s a bigot – Damian Thompson 

8. Revenge porn’s Ukip poster girl highlights the dangers of digital media – Lara Prendergast

9. Could this George Galloway speech save the Union? – Sebastian Payne
10. Overpaid, underworked, ineffectual – the myth of the NHS doctor – Tarek S Arab