This year the team at Total Politics decided to expand the list to include the Top 300 political blogs, rather than the normal 200. The voting system used to compile this list was simple. Bloggers and blog readers were asked to rank their top ten blogs and then email them to Total Politics. The results were fed into a spreadsheet, with the top blog getting ten points, the second blog nine points and so on.In total, people voted for 940 blogs (compared to 590 in 2008).
The Top 20 blogs contain the expected familiar faces but there are seven new entries – Paul Waugh, Tory Bear, LabourList, Old Holborn, Douglas Carswell MP, Obnoxio the Clown and Alastair Campbell. Dropping out of the Top 20 are Burning Our Money, LibDem Voice, EU Referendum, Tim Worstall, Mr Eugenides, Three Line Whip and Stumbling & Mumbling. The most spectacular fall has been experienced by the Telegraph’s Three Line Whip blog, which has plummeted from 19 to 176. Meanwhile, right wing attack blog Old Holborn jumps 134 places to enter the top twenty at number 16. Tory Bear enters the top twenty at number eleven, jumping sixty places.
Perhaps the biggest achievement goes to LabourList and Alastair Campbell, who both enter the top twenty after only seven months of blogging activity. For LabourList to appear anywhere at all following its disastrous start under the leadership of Derek Draper is a minor miracle in itself. But its new editor Alex Smith has established it as a serious left of centre forum in a very short time.
Out of the Top 20, 14 (15 last year) blogs are on the right and 4 (3) are on the left
Out of the Top 100, 39 (48) blogs are on the right and 32 (30) are on the left
The Top 100 features 20 (27) Conservative blogs, 15 (16) Labour and 9 (10) LibDem
The Top 200 features 38 (37) Conservative blogs, 28 (33) Labour and 19 (21) LibDem
35 out of the Top 100 were not in last year’s Top 100.
So in terms of political balance, the left is making marginal progress, but the right of centre blogs still dominate the upper echelons of the chart. Tom Harris MP has deservedly broken into the Top 10, while LabourList and Alastair Campell have done well to get into the Top 20 after only half a year’s blogging. Liberal Conspiracy chose not to withdraw from the poll very late on, but had it not done so, it would have finished in 21st position.
In previous years there had been accusations that the voting in this poll had been dominated by readers of right of centre blogs, particularly my own. This year we enlisted the support of LabourList and LibDem Voice to co-sponsor the poll, and more than 100 blogs from all over the blogosphere publicized it too. Fourteen blogs asked not to take part (they are listed HERE). It is impossible to say how representative these votes are of the blogosphere in general but what can be said with absolute certainty is that it is a more accurate reflection than last year.
1 1 Guido Fawkes
2 2 Iain Dale
3 7 Spectator Coffee House
4 3 Conservative Home
5 5 Political Betting
6 4 Dizzy Thinks
7 - Paul Waugh
8 13 Tom Harris MP
9 6 Devil's Kitchen
10 18 Daniel Hannan MEP
11 71 Tory Bear
1214 Archbishop Cranmer
13 9 John Redwood MP
14 17 2 Hopi Sen
15 - LabourList
16 150 Old Holborn
17 - Douglas Carswell MP
18 10 Benedict Brogan
19 - Obnoxio the Clown
20 - Alastair Campbell
21 34 Letters from a Tory
22 8 Burning our Money
23 - Charlotte Gore
24 21 Donal Blaney
25 44 SNP Tactical Voting
26 29 Luke Akehurst
27 24 Nick Robinson
28 11 EU Referendum
29 43 Harry's Place
30 15 LibDem Voice
31 28 Comment Central
32 - Next Left
33 20 Stumbling & Mumbling
34 83 The Daily (Maybe)
35 - Underdogs Bite Upwards
36 157 Guerilla Welsh Fare
37 - Himmelgarten Cafe
38 16 Mr Eugenides
39 12 Tim Worstall
40 46 UK Polling Report
41 57 A Very Public Sociologist
42 33 Dave's Part
43 - Samizdata
44 38 Shane Greer
45 63 Biased BBC
46 34 Nadine Dorries MP
47 - Third Estate
48 37 Norfolk Blogger
49 Mark Reckons
50 109 Miserable Old Fart
51 41 Slugger O'Toole
52 131 Two Doctors
53 192 Blog Menai
54 39 Sadie's Tavern
55 - Blackburn Labour
56 - Liberal Vision
57 - Tory Radio
58 198 Kerry McCarthy MP
59 - Malc in the Burgh
60 101 Mark Wadsworth
61 - Ranting Penguin
62 Bickerstaffe Record
63 - Boatang & Demetriou
64 - Working Class Tory
65 47 Socialist Unity
66 130 The F Word
67 - Caron's Musings
68 - Heresy Corner
69 49 Liberal England
70 33 Tom Watson MP
71 31 LabourHome
72 - Ambush Predator
73 - Yapping Yousuf
74 - James Delingpole
75 25 People's Republic of Mortimer
76 151 Penny Red
77 27 Adam Smith Institute
78 Dick Puddlecote
79 62 Libertarian Party Members' Blog
80 69 Raedwald
81 - Scottish Unionist
82 - Go Fourth!
83 Sharpe's Opinion
84 112 Adam Price MP
85 - Duncan's Economic Blog
86 172 Behind Blue Eyes
87 100 Last Ditch
88 45 Quaequam Blog
89 UK Commentators
90 42 A Very British Dude
91 - TrueBlueBlood
92 - Richard Willis
93 - Constantly Furious
94 84 Peter Hitchens
95 145 Craig Murray
96 56 Paul Scully
97 67 J Arthur MacNumpty
98 160 Welsh Ramblings
99 - Don Paskini
100 - Syniadau
To see numbers 101-199 click HERE and for 200-300 HERE.
If your blog is included in any of these lists please do feel free to add one of these buttons and link back to THIS page.
Dud link on 200-300.
ReplyDeleteThe link to 100-200 doesn't work and the page is not present on the Total Politics site!!!
ReplyDeleteInks to the lower orders aren't working. Just FYI
ReplyDeleteBoth are working now. I just checked.
ReplyDeleteOK Iain I think I need a special button for the best all round nearly blog.
ReplyDelete2x 11th and 101st overall. What are the odd?
Thank you for all your hard work, Iain. And thank you to all those who voted for me!! Woohoo!
ReplyDeleteIain - you seem to be obsessed with lists!
ReplyDeleteThank you very much to everone that voted. I'd also like to thank my wine merchant, publican and all the co-conspirators that make the blog.
ReplyDeleteI know we all tease Iain for his list-o-mania, but it does actually have the effect of providing a reference for people outside the online world and show the breadth of the British blogosphere. It is a big job and he does it.
(It also ups his link-rank unassailable levels).
Number 60, that's nice, thanks to all concerned.
ReplyDeleteOh yes, up 134 places to 16th in just my second year of blogging.
ReplyDeleteMany thanks to the fat poof himself for putting it up....er...oh dear
Iain, why not include the blogs who don't want to take part? There's nothing stopping you: Zagat can rank and review restuarant x, no matter how much resturant x doesn't want it to (as far as I'm aware).
ReplyDeleteRe: 'Liberal Conspiracy chose not to withdraw from the poll'.
ReplyDeleteI suggest you meant 'Liberal Conspiracy chose to withdraw from the poll'.
In at number 93? Look at me, Mummy!!
ReplyDeleteMany thanks to those who voted for Constantly Furious
For those who didn't - there's always next year..
After today's changes, I would be surprised if Speccies Coffee house kept its position next year.
ReplyDeleteI know he gets a lot of link-love from Iain and others but Dizzy Thinks's position is so incongruous. Better than Waugh, Harris, Campbell, Robinson? You have to be kidding.
ReplyDelete