I'm truly humbled...

Mike Smithson is in my view the best and most influential political blogger in the land (see previous post.) So I was hugely honoured to receive this nomination for Mr Dale's poll.

It's particularly gratifying in view of the fact that I've found it hard to post as often as I would like over recent months due to other commitments. But like Paddy McAloon* I have tried to maintain some "quality control" and I'm genuinely humbled that someone of Mike's stature should recognise this.

Meanwhile...two narrow near-misses in the Witanagemot Club Political Blogging Awards voted for by bloggers who support the establishment of an English Parliament.

In an encouraging sign that this blog has so far managed to avoid pigeonholing, it was voted both the 2nd best Labour-supporting blog behind Kerron Cross, and the 2nd best centre-ground blog, behind (somewhat bizarrely) Iain Dale.

* The guy out of Prefab Sprout who wrote about four double-albums' worth of material in the 1990s and didn't release any of it because he thought it wasn't up to the standard of their previous work.

The Top 20

Last year, I made it into the Top 10 of Iain Dale's Guide to Political Blogging in the UK. I don't really expect to do the same again - there's a lot more competition out there now and my work commitments have prevented me growing the blog as much as I would have liked in the past year - but Mr Dale is now working on a follow-up edition and wants your views as to which blogs should be included.

Naturally I hope that as a reader of this blog you'll vote for me, but either way please email your nominations to iain AT iaindale DOT com, typing Top 20 in the subject line and ordering them from 1 to 20. Your top blog gets 20 points and your twentieth gets 1 point.

The deadline for submitting your Top 20 to Iain is 15 August. Once all the entries are in, a lucky dip prize draw will take place in which the winner will win £100 worth of books and cds.

My Top 20, for what it's worth, is listed below. There will, I suspect, be few surprises here, although the last two blogs named are relative newcomers to the 'sphere which have really impressed me of late.

1 Political Betting
2 Iain Dale's Diary
3 Liberal England
4 Bloggerheads
5 Benedict Brogan
6 Chicken Yoghurt
7 Guido Fawkes
8 Dizzy Thinks
9 UK Daily Pundit
10 Skipper
11 Rachel from North London
12 Tom Watson
13 Nick Robinson
14 Mars Hill
15 Little Man in a Toque
16 The Nether World
17 Obsolete
18 Conservative Home
19 Kate's Home Blog
20 Newer Labour

The buzz around David Davis

Some interesting speculation on the Tory blogosphere over the last couple of days over whether David Davis is now becoming David Cameron's de facto deputy, and as such whether he rather than George Osborne or William Hague is now best placed to take over should Cambo fall under the bus or, alternatively, be ditched by his increasingly restive party.

I have to say the same thing occurred to me last week and was touched on in my weekend column, entitled Could the Tories ditch Dave? Very asutely, Davis managed to be both 100pc loyal to Cameron while dramatically improving his own standing in the eyes of party members.

"He was certainly making all the right noises this week, going out of his way to be loyal to Mr Cameron and demanding that MPs show “a bit of discipline” – exactly what the grassroots like to hear."

The column can be read in full HERE and is also available as a podcast HERE.