Guide to Blogging 2007: Top 100 Liberal Democrat Blogs

The GUIDE TO POLITICAL BLOGGING 2007 is being published on Monday. Featured among the 288 pages are a myriad of blog lists. Now for the TOP 100 LIBERAL DEMOCRAT BLOGS.

This year’s Top 100 Liberal Democrat blogs has been chosen by a panel of LibDem bloggers. This means that comparisons to last year’s chart are difficult to draw as that was chosen by a panel of one – me. However, there are some interesting pointers, nonetheless.

The number one LibDem blogger this year is Jonathan Calder’s Liberal England blog. Jonathan writes the Lord Bonkers column in Liberal Democrat News, but he is anything but bonkers himself! His blog carries a mixture of LibDem commentary, general political comment and a few personal observations thrown in for good measure. He deserves his pole position.

Stephen Tall has emerged in the last twelve months as a key player in the Liberal Democrat blogosphere. His own A Liberal Goes a Long Way blog won last year’s Liberal Democrat blog of the year, awarded by the Libdems at their party conference, and he has become a familiar face as the LibDem blogger who most appears on the media. Recently he has taken over as commissioning editor of LibDem Voice, which, it is to be hoped, does not see a decline in his own blog. Stephen is not one to write short snappy posts. He has an erudite, if sometimes academic, style, which means that his posts have a clear beginning, middleand end. He’s a blogger who makes the reader think about their own position on an issue, and you can hardly pay a higher compliment than that.

The highest new entry is Nich Starling’s Norfolk Blogger blog. Bearing in mind that in the Top 500 chart this is the top ranked LibDem blog, it’s somewhat surprising to see him languishing in twelfth place in this chart. Obviously fellow LibDems don’t think of highly of his blog as his political opponents. Indeed, many of his votes in the Top 500 came from Conservatives. He was also scandalously overlooked in the LibDems' own blog awards. Nich has stated that he has modelled his blog on my own. I leave it to others to judge a) whether that was a good idea and b) whether it has worked. He’s certainly prolific, but I wonder whether that sometimes detracts from some of his better posts. He’s far too ready to go on the attack sometimes, but hey, why not?

James Graham’s Quaequam blog is consistently good. He’s another blogger who can’t see an opponent without hitting below the belt, but his writing style and general background knowledge of constitutional reform issues make him an increasing must-read for people across the political spectrum.

One of the sadder developments in the LibDem blogosphere this year has been the decline of LibDem Voice. At one stage it looked as if it might disappear altogether when its creator, Rob Fenwick, decided he had had enough. In the end a collective of libdems bloggers including Mark Pack, Stephen Tall and Ryan Cullen came to the rescue. It does seem, however, to have become a party mouthpiece with Mark Pack, a senior LibDem employee writing the majority of the posts. [correction - Mark P informs me he now only writes 10% of the posts - when I wrote this piece in July it certainly seemed as if he wrote the majority!] It’s lost that certain ‘spark’ which Rob Fenwick gave it, and it doesn’t question LibDem officialdom in the way that Conservative Home does.

If I were to pick out one LibDem blogger who had the potential to make the bigtime it’s James Oates from Cicero’s Songs. He’s a consistently brilliant writer, who provides insight with every blogpost. If he posted more often and updated his blog design he would be in the top three next year.

As a Conservative I probably read more LibDem blogs than most others. I find them consistently more entertaining than Labour blogs, as their authors tend to inject their own personalities into their blogs in a way that Labour bloggers tend not to.

It’s clear that LibDem have harnessed the blogosphere well, and their influence is likely to grow over the next twelve months. I’m not sure what it says about their leader that his blog is rated 100 out of 100 by LibDem bloggers, but they say that the exception proves the rule. The LibDem blogosphere is undoubtedly in rude health.

The second number listed is the position in the 2006 chart.

1 4 Liberal England
2 17 A Liberal Goes A Long Way
3 15 Quaequam
4 1 LibDem Voice
5 5 Peter Black
6 26 Liberal Burblings
7 77 Millennium Dome Elephant
8 19 Cicero's Songs
9 24 Andy Mayer
10 8 Love & Liberty
11 7 Lynne Featherstone
12 NEW Norfolk Blogger
13 12 No Geek Is An Island
14 30 Liberal Bureaucracy
15 74 Hug a Hoodie
16 2 Niles's Blog
17 10 A Posh Sounding Northumbrian
18 38 Hot, Ginger & Dynamite
19 8 Jock Coats
20 27 What You Can Get Away With
21 51 Jonathan Wallace
22 NEW Liberal Mafia

23 49 Liberal Alone
24 37 Whiskey Priest
25 6 LibDem Blogs
26 NEW Adrian Sanders MP
27 60 Sandals are Off
28 NEW Steve Webb MP
29 3 Liberal Review
30 91 On Liberty Online
31 62 Mary Reid
32 NEW Ed Maxfield
33 NEW Wouldn't it be Scarier…
34 NEW Diary of Chris K
35 40 Pink Dog
36 86 Republic of Hyde Park
37 44 Richard Allan
38 NEW Duncan Borrowman
39 54 Colin Ross
40 NEW Clowns to the Left of Me

41 NEW David Nikel
42 NEW Jonathan Fryer
43 42 Moonlight over Essex
44 NEW Mike Barker
45 21 Anders Hanson
46 36 Eaten by Missionaries
47 NEW Jeremy Hargreaves
48 NEW Matt Davies

49 18 John Hemming MP
50 20 Ballots, Balls & Bikes
51 NEW Greengauge 52 58 Rick's St Mary's Diary 53 NEW Home Office Watch 54 NEW Lindyloo's Muze 55 43 Arwen Folkes 56 61 Liberal Legend 57 NEW Process Guy 58 16 Suz Blog 59 Bernard Woolley 60 34 Sajjad Karim MEP 61 25 Charles Anglin 62 NEW Barcharters Anonymous 63 NEW Liberal Leslie 64 NEW Hooting Yard 65 28 Progressive Politics 66 NEW Disgruntled Radical 67 59 Simon Jeram 68 NEW Joe's Extra Bold Blog 69 NEW Mark Young 70 NEW Belsize Libdems 71 NEW Hunting for Witches 72 NEW All Along the Watchtower 73 50 Ryan Cullen 74 32 Agent Mancuso 75 23 Liberal Action 76 NEW The 3 P's 77 48 Chris & Glynis Abbott 78 52 Paula Keaveney 79 NEW Ann Garner 80 35 And Then He Said 81 NEW A Radical Writes 82 NEW JohnBM:Liberal 83 73 Neil Woolcott 84 NEW Liberal Polemic 85 NEW Freethink 86 NEW Voice of Young Liberal Democrats 87 14 Eric Avebury 88 79 Oliver's Battery & Badger Farm 89 NEW Long Despairing Young Something 90 NEW Anything Caron Can Do 91 29 Forceful & Moderate 92 69 Fraser MacPherson 93 NEW Ian Eiloart 94 75 Stodge 95 NEW 5tracks 96 92 David Walker 97 89 Flock Together 98 NEW de moribus liberalibus 99 98 MKNE Political Information 100 100 Ming Campbell