Here's one thing the Express is great at: losing readers

The latest newspaper circulation figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations were released yesterday. Full coverage can be found here and here.

But it seems worth highlighting the numbers for the Express - the self-proclaimed 'World Greatest Newspaper'.

In November 2009 it was shifting only 685,195 copies per day.

Of all the tabloids it now has the smallest circulation - lower than The Sun, Mail, Mirror and Star. It's also fallen way behind the Telegraph.

Which, for the 'World's Greatest Newspaper' seems, well, odd.

Would it be at all possible to blame their useless, dishonest Editor Peter Hill, the man who wouldn't know a decent front page story if it kicked him up the arse?

This is a man who decided that following one of the most significant news events of his lifetime - the inauguration of Barack Obama - his newspaper would carry a wraparound car advert.

Hill took over as Editor of the Express in December 2003.

That month, the paper's circulation was 851,199 copies per day.

And now, it's 685,195.

That's a loss of 166,004 copies per day.

A fall of 19.5%.

In 2003 the Express' circulation was 22,374 higher per day than the Star. Now it's 138,281 behind.

Inevitably, every newspaper's circulation has decreased since 2003. But the Express has suffered the second biggest fall of all the national dailies, with only the Mirror's 33.6% decline ahead of it.

The rot is not just down to Hill. Express owner, liar and pornographer Richard Desmond acquired the paper in November 2000, when circulation was 985,253. While he's been in charge, his business plan of slashing costs and firing journalists has resulted in a circulation decline of 30.5%.

So it appears that Hill and Richard Desmond are only ones who think stuffing their rag full of adverts, TaxPayers' Alliance quotes, Diana conspiracy theories, nonsense health stories, and fact-free scaremongering about immigration and Muslims is what makes their newspaper the - don't laugh - 'greatest'.