The Top 500 Political Blogs in the UK - Voted for By You

The GUIDE TO POLITICAL BLOGGING 2007 is now available. You can buy it from Politico's (£9.74) or Amazon (£14.98). This is the final list which will be published on this blog (ok ok... I get the hint).

When compiling a list of top blogs last year, due to constraints, I did it all myself. I scored each blog with ten criteria and out of that came the rankings. Naturally, it was all very subjective. With more time available this year I asked fellow bloggers and blog readers to come up with their Top 20 or Top 10 blogs. These were then fed into a spreadsheet, and the list of Britain’s Top 500 political blogs emerged. In some ways, it is similar to my own list last year in that many of the recognised names appear at the top of the chart. But there have been some significant new arrivals since last year’s edition was compiled, several of which feature high up the chart. Before the analysis let’s look at a few facts.

* Out of the Top 20, fourteen of the blogs are on the right and only two are on the left
* Out of the Top 100, 42 blogs are on the right and 27 are on the left
* Out of the Top 500 154 are on the right and 153 are on the left
* 9 LibDem blogs feature in the Top 100 and 50 feature in the Top 500
* 4 blogs written by full time journalists feature in the Top 20 and 50 are in the Top 500

So the lesson is that although right wing blogs still dominate the upper reaches of the chart, left of centre blogs are showing signs of coming to life and challenging the right. I full expect to see three or four left of centre blogs join the ‘big boys’ over the next twelve months, although at the moment it is difficult to see who they might be. Kerron Cross is best placed but keep an eye on Rupa Huq.

Sceptics may well point to the fact that a right wing Blogger (ie me!) organised this poll and therefore the results might well be skewed in favour of the right. Indeed, the fact that people voted my blog the top blog of all, would tend to add weight to that argument (although
I should say I got 60% more votes than the second placed blog Guido Fawkes, and double that of third placed blog Dizzy Thinks).

However, before rushing to judgement too quickly, reflect on the fact that of the 500 people who sent in their lists, nearly half of them were clearly left of centre voters. The Top 100 blog structure very much reflects that of the football leagues. There are four blogs who, in terms of influence and traffic, are way ahead of the others – Guido Fawkes, ConservativeHome, Iain
Dale’s Diary and PoliticalBetting.com. They are, if you like, the Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal of the UK blogging fraternity. You then have a few teams who might challenge in a good year – Dizzy Thinks (Everton), Devil’s Kitchen (Newcastle) and Recess Monkey (Spurs) – a few new comers who fizz into their first year with huge promise – Spectator Coffee House (Bolton), Norfolk Blogger (Wigan) and Ben Brogan (Reading) – and then a whole group of clubs wo are quite happy with a mid table position – Croydonian (West Ham), Archbishop Cranmer (Middlesbrough) and Tim Worstall (Manchester City) spring to mind.

There are several blogs emerging from the equivalent of the Football League Championship – Caroline Hunt, Bob Piper and the Watford supporting Kerron Cross among them. But it is further down the leagues that you find several blogs with Premier League potential. The Liberal Democrat supporting Quaequam blog, right wing ranter Donal Blaney, The Waendel Journal and Trotskyite Dave’s Part would certainly be among them.

The challenge for all the blogs outside the top echelons is to build traffic. There is a lot written about the growing influence of UK bloggers, but there are only five or six blogs which could be said to have a mass audience. They are Guido Fawkes, ConservativeHome, Iain Dale’s Diary, EU Referendum and Political Betting. Each of these blogs has a daily readership into five figures and monthly page views of several hundred thousand. Few other blogs manage more than 1,000 daily visitors. Blogs like Dizzy Thinks, which I happen to think will break into the big time in the next twelve months, have steadily built traffic over the last year but may need one big hit to make the breakthrough.

Quality of writing and insight will always win through in the end. The last twelve months has also seen several journalistic blogs spring to the forefront. The Spectator Coffee House blog is one that I thought was destined to fail because between five and ten people write for it. I thought it would be difficult for it to obtain ‘personality’, a key ingredient for success for any blog. How wrong I was. Within a few months it established itself as a daily ‘must read’, way ahead of any other mainstream media group blog. Ben Brogan is another print journalist who has taken to blogging like a duck to water. The secret of his success is that he provides snippets of insight which would never make it into the Daily Mail. His readers know he is ‘in the know’. Similarly, Nick Robinson’s success as a blogger is because he writes about things which would not make his news bulletin, or he provides added insight to an item which did. There was a time when Adam Boulton’s blog was streets ahead of Nick’s. Not any longer.

No one knows where UK blogging is going to be headed over the next twelve months, least of all me. All I do hope is that next year I will be asking you all again to vote for your Top 20 blogs. And when you do, I imagine that there will be quite a few changes at the top of the leaderboard. So here's the Top 500.

1 Iain Dale's Diary
2 Guido Fawkes
3 Dizzy Thinks
4 ConservativeHome
5 Political Betting
6 Devil's Kitchen
7 Croydonian
8 Nick Robinson
9 Spectator Coffee House
10 Ellee Seymour
11 Recess Monkey
12 Burning our Money
13 Archbishop Cranmer
14 Benedict Brogan
15 Tim Worstall
16 Mr Eugenides
17 Norfolk Blogger
18 Paul Linford
19 Prague Tory
20 EU Referendum
21 Harry's Place
22 Tom Watson MP
23 NHS Blog Doctor
24 Caroline Hunt
25 Bob Piper
26 Fair Deal Phil
27 Times Comment Central
28 Tory Radio
29 Chicken Yoghurt
30 Ministry of Truth
31 Kerron Cross
32 Slugger O'Toole
33 Nadine Dorries MP
34 Pickled Politics
35 Donal Blaney
36 Boris Johnson
37 Theo Spark
38 Labour Home
39 British Bullshit Foundation
40 Biased BBC
41 An Englishman's Castle
42 John Redwood MP
43 Hunter & Shooter
44 Craig Murray
45 Samizdata
46 Dave's Part
47 Waendel Journal
48 Newmania
49 Rachel From North London
50 The Last Ditch
51 Our Kingdom
52 Bloggers 4 Labour
53 Liberal England
54 LibDem Voice
55 Stephen Tall
56 Adam Smith Institute
57 Bloggerheads
58 Hoby
59 Daily Referendum
60 Bel is Thinking
61 Quaequam
62 The Bristow Blog
63 Millennium Dome Elephant
64 Suz Blog
65 Antonia Bance
66 WebCameron
67 Spyblog
68 City Unslicker
69 James Cleverley
70 Stumbling & Mumbling
71 Beau Bo D'Or
72 Luke Akehurst
73 Newer Labour
74 As a Dodo
75 Edland
76 Chris Paul Labour of Love
77 Tartan Hero
78 Glyn Davies
79 UK Daily Pundit
80 Westminster Wisdom
81 Melanie Phillips
82 Blair Watch
83 Liberal Burblings
84 18 Doughty Street
85 Daniel Hannan MEP
86 Matt Wardman
87 Mars Hill
88 Little Man in a Toque
89 Policeman's Blog
90 Peter Black AM
91 Mark Mardell
92 Rolled Up Trousers
93 Shiraz Socialist
94 Bishop Hill
95 Tim Roll-Pickering
96 Paul Flynn MP
97 Oliver Kamm
98 Campaign for an English Parliament
99 Ordovicius
100 Snowflake5 101 Grimmer Up North 102 Musings of a Reactionary Snob 103 Love & Liberty 104 UK Polling Report 105 Skipper 106 Laban Tall 107 Little & Large 108 Sinclair's Musings 109 Miranda Grell 110 Earthquake Cove 111 A Very British Dude 112 Wheeler's Website 113 1820.org.uk 114 Stephen Pollard 115 Evanomics 116 Roger Helmer MEP 117 The Green Ribbon 118 John Moorcroft 119 A Tangled Web 120 Norm Blog 121 Cicero's Songs 122 Toby Harnden 123 Jane's the One 124 Nourishing Obscurity 125 The Daily (Maybe) 126 Looking for a Voice 127 Curly's Corner Shop 128 Adam Boulton 129 Monbiot.com 130 Mike Ion 131 Iain Lindley 132 Darlington Councillor 133 Stroppy Blog 134 Idiots 4 Labour 135 Thunder Dragon 136 Birmingham University CF 137 PM 138 Priti Patel 139 Man in a Shed 140 Taxpayer's Alliance
141 People's Commissar of Enligtenment 142 Andy Mayer 143 Tygerland 144 Contra Tory 145 PJC Journal 146 Chase me Ladies 147 The Sharpener 148 The Difference 149 Rupa Huq 150 Bryan Appleyard 151 Theo Blackwell 152 Scottish Patient 153 Barry Beelzebub 154 Mike Rouse 155 Paul Scully 156 Darker Side of Bridget Jones 157 Normal Mouth 158 Pub Philosopher 159 Drink Soaked Trotskyite Popinjays for War 160 Not Saussure 161 Peter Hitchens 162 Philobiblon 163 Paul Kingsnorth 164 Istanbul Tory 165 Three Score Years & Ten 166 England Project 167 Labour Humanist 168 Nosemonkey Europhobia 169 Political Hack UK 170 Britain & America 171 Snedds 172 Lynne Featherstone MP 173 Open Secrets 174 Crushed by Ingsoc 175 Hot, Ginger & Dynamite 176 A Conservative's Blog 177 Richard Corbett MEP 178 Nation of Shopkeepers 179 Miserable Old Fart 180 Dr Rant 181 Gauche 182 Socialist Unity 183 Corporate Presenter 184 Ghost of the Hitch 185 Liberal Bureaucracy 186 Stephen Newton's Diary 187 David Gold 188 The F Word 189 Betsan Powys 190 Ruscombe Green 191 Nanny Knows Best 192 Liberal Mafia 193 Bethan Jenkins 194 Blood & Treasure 195 Obsolete 196 Blether with Brian 197 Waking Hereward 198 S J Howard 199 Hug a Hoodie 200 Another Green World 201 Raedwald 202 Open Europe 203 Terry Watch 204 Linguanaut 205 Labour's Fightback 206 Lenin's Tomb 207 West Brom Blog 208 Adam Price MP 209 Matt Davies 210 Wonko's World 211 Martine Martin's Lebwog 212 Dodgeblogium 213 Scottish Co-Operative... 214 Ranting Stan 215 Neue Arbeit Macht Frei 216 A Conservative Mind 217 British Politics 218 Nicolas Webb 219 Colin Ross 220 Antony Little 221 Young Unionists 222 Clive Davis 223 Media Lens 224 Three Thousand Versts... 225 Remittance Man 226 A Pint of Unionist Lite 227 Tigmoo 228 Longrider 229 Civitas 230 Vaughan Roderick 231 Vino's Political Blog 232 Patrick Cusworth 233 Lindyloo's Muze 234 Angels in Marble 235 Gaian Economics 236 Graeme Archer 237 Dylan Jones-Evans 238 Some Day I Will Treat You Good 239 Huw Lewis AM 240 Brussels Journal 241 Social Europe 242 Parbury Politica 243 J Arthur Macnumpty 244 Greenwich Watch 245 Austin Mitchell MP 246 YBF Activists 247 Ian Hamilton QC 248 Downing Street Says 249 Never Trust a Hippy 250 Jeffrey Archer 251 James O'Malley: Living Legend 252 Between the Hammer &... 253 Matt T 254 Fibdems 255 Niles's Blog 256 England Expects 257 Mabinogogiblog 258 No Geek is an Island 259 General Theory of Rubbish 260 Eric Lee 261 Belsize LibDems 262 Random Acts of Reality 263 Not Proud of Britain 264 Let's be Sensible 265 Jock Coats 266 Grendel 267 Freedom & Whisky 268 Jag Singh 269 Union Futures 270 Regalis 271 If Sam Tarran Was in Charge 272 Jonathan Fryer 273 Omar's Blog 274 Luke Akehurst Parody Blog 275 Liberal Alone 276 BBC Editors' Blog 277 Nether-World 278 Wouldn't it be Scarier… 279 GWE 280 Mutley the Dog 281 The Spine
282 Skud's Sister's Brother 283 Disgruntled Radical 284 What You Can Get Away With 285 Jeremy Hargreaves 286 Mary Reid 287 Cascittuni 288 Your Friend in the North 289 Stuart King 290 Social Affairs Unit 291 Revolts 292 Postman Patel 293 Phil Taylor 294 New Culture Forum 295 Gavin Ayling 296 Dasmirnov 297 Alasdair Ross 298 Richard Baum 299 Mailstrom 300 Inspector Gadget

My capacity for linking has reached its end. To find out who the next 200 are in the Top 500 I'm afraid you'll have to buy the BOOK!