The Independent – it’s a viewspaper

50 ways to lose readers of your 'newspaper'. The Independent continues its pioneering project to remove news from the paper with its 50 Reasons to love the EU frontpage.

I think The Independent has a trajectory like plan: from news, to views, to snooze. Surely the only explanation? Okay it does have a good reason for today's front cover – the EU is 50 years old, but still (and besides the Marshall Plan, which gave rise to the whole endeavour is 60…).

It's like someone at Canary Wharf found an old copy of The Sun (50 reasons why we hate Europe) and had a brainstorm and smartly concluded: "We can turn this around?"

At Number one 1 on the Indy hit parade is an end to wars between European nations. I thought that this was only because the now wimpy Germans refuse to fly at night or do their fair share on the international scene? I could be wrong.

Still, while I carp about the amount of news that The Independent does not carry on its front page on a regular basis, I am clearly in a minority. I know, what's with that?

In the most recent ABCs The Independent remained steady in February rising by 0.26% to 264,182 over the month. Simon Kelner's title has dropped 1.65% in its six monthly average to 257,036.

That said it is only around 100,000 down on its centre left rival Guardian (364,491), but I guess in its favour the Indie does not carry the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood and Simon Jenkins on its comment pages – neither of which when I last checked had much to do with the centre left. Still with the paper advertising for a new Comment Editor on Monday to replace Seamus Milne lets hope its once fine pages take a turn for the better.