The 51st Blog

Iain Dale has today finally published the results of his annual blog popularity poll ahead of the publication of the full 2008 Guide to Political Blogging tomorrow.

Many thanks for all those who voted for me, but as anticipated I have fallen some way down the list from 10th in 2006 and 18th last year to 51st this time.

Finishing so tantalisingly close to the Top 50 has made me slightly regret not voting for myself, but I can have no real complaints.

This blog has moved much more in the direction of becoming a personal diary over the past year, and although I knew all along that this would cost me traffic, it has been entirely deliberate on my part.

In the longer-run, the blog is not in the business of becoming a money-making venture, nor a one-man instant punditry factory. It is, and can only ever be, no more than a reflection of whatever enthuses me enough to write about it.

At one time, that was primarily politics. Nowadays it's much more a mixture of politics, music, telly, journalism, and whatever's going on in my home and family life.

Ultimately, the blog will stand or fall on the quality of its writing, and in this regard I do have some plans for how the blog may develop over the next 12 months.

But what it won't be doing is going back to providing near-instant commentary on breaking political news, as it once did. There are others who are now far better resourced to do that sort of thing - including a growing number of people in the MSM who are actually paid to do so.

As to the rest of the list, I think the evident right-wing bias does bear out some of the fears expressed by the likes of Sunny Hundal and Tim Ireland that it would not be entirely representative, although to be fair to Iain Dale, he has never claimed it would be.

Right-wing blogs predictably dominate. Of the Top 10, only Political Betting at No 5 could genuinely claim to be non-aligned, and even the two highest-placed media blogs, Coffee House (7) and Ben Brogan (10) are right-leaning. The highest left-of-centre blog, Tom Harris, comes in at 13.

In addition several of the blogs up there are acquired tastes whose appeal does not generally spread beyond the right - for instance Burning Our Money, John Redwood, EU Referendum and Daniel Hannan, all of which make the Top 20.

A scientifically balanced sample would surely have placed the indispensible Political Betting higher than No 5 and probably at least one or two left-of-centre blogs in the Top 10

The thing that most interested me about the survey was the fact that of the left-of-centre blogs that did best, four were all newcomers - namely Tom Harris, Hopi Sen, Liberal Conspiracy and Sadie's Tavern.

While they all headed straight into the Top 40, longer-established names such as Recess Monkey, Tom Watson, Labour Home, Bob Piper and myself all found ourselves dropping down the list - to say nothing of Rupa Huq, Kerron Cross and Mars Hill who dropped out of the Top 100 altogether.

There must be something in that. People are clearly looking for something fresh from the left blogosphere, and this year at least, the older, more established blogs weren't able to provide that - a bit like the government really.

Maybe next year we will display greater resilience and teach these arrivistes a thing or two.

I was also surprised that some "big media" blogs didn't do better given the mainstream media's increasing attempts to appropriate the blogging medium over the past 12 months.

Spectator Coffee House and Ben Brogan both deservedly make the Top 10, but the Telegraph's Three Line Whip places no higher than 19th, the BBC's Nick Robinson slumps from 8th to 28th, and The Times' excellent Red Box blog comes in at 98th, which is just plain silly.

You can read my more detailed thoughts on the state of the MSM blogosphere in the Guide itself, published tomorrow.

But without further ado, here is the full, colour-coded list of blogs that were rated better than this one.

1. (2) Guido Fawkes
2. (1) Iain Dale
3. (4) Conservative Home
4. (3) Dizzy Thinks
5. (-) Political Betting
6. (-) Devil's Kitchen
7. (9) Spectator Coffee House
8. (12) Burning our Money
9. (42) John Redwood
10. (14) Ben Brogan
11. (20) EU Referendum
12. (15) Tim Worstall
13. (-) Tom Harris MP
14. (13) Archbishop Cranmer
15. (54) LibDem Voice
16. (16) Mr Eugenides
17. (-) Hopi Sen
18. (85) Daniel Hannan MEP
19. (-) Three Line Whip
20. (70) Stumbling & Mumbling
21. (35) Donal Blaney
22. (128) Boulton & Co
23. (-) Liberal Conspiracy
24. (8) Nick Robinson
25. (-) People's Republic of Mortimer
26. (11) Recess Monkey
27. (56) Adam Smith Institute
28. (27) Comment Central
29. (72) Luke Akehurst
30. (47) Waendel Journal
31. (38) LabourHome
32. (30) Ministry of Truth
33. (22) Tom Watson MP
34. (33) Nadine Dorries
35. (46) Dave's Part
36. (-) Letters from a Tory
37. (17) Norfolk Blogger
38. (-) Shane Greer
39. (-) Sadie's Tavern
40. (45) Samizdata
41. (32) Slugger O'Toole
42. (111) A Very British Dude
43. (21) Harry's Place
44. (-) SNP Tactical Voting
45. (61) Quaequam Blog
46. (104) UK Polling Report
47. (182) Socialist Unity
48. (59) Daily Referendum
49. (53) Liberal England
50. (172) Lynne Featherstone MP

Class

Commenting on today's latest helpful intervention by embittered former home secretary Charles Clarke, former Labour minister Nigel Griffiths told the Today Programme: "In 2007 he and Alan Milburn set up a think tank called 2020 Vision. It didn't think but it certainly tanked."

A contender for Quote of the Year, surely.

Those Top Ten Journal Moments

My old colleague Graeme Whitfield recently celebrated ten years on the staff of Newcastle's Journal by naming his ten most memorable Journal moments on his blog.

I well remember hearing about some of the hilarious newsroom incidents he describes although being based down in Westminster I unfortunately never witnessed them in person.

Anyway, even though I only managed seven and a half years on the staff, Graeme's piece has inspired me to do the same and list my own Top Ten Journal Moments.

Here they are.

1. Going more than 40 hours without sleep as New Labour came to power on 1/2 May 1997. I was officially on duty in Newcastle from 2pm on May 1 and we wrapped up the final edition of our election special 14 hours later at around 4am. I then caught the first train down to London and was outside No 10 for Blair's triumphal arrival later that morning. It was exhausting, but the sense of watching history in the making was intoxicating.

2. Sitting in the Commons Chamber in March 2003 and listening to Robin Cook's masterful resignation speech.

3. Being on Prime Minister John Major's plane during the 1997 election campaign when smackhead novelist Will Self was caught jacking up in the toilets mid-flight. We were en route to a photocall with Margaret Thatcher in Middlesbrough.

4. Falling asleep in a fishing boat moored on Brighton Beach after a rather heavy night during a Lib Dem Conference. It was a long walk back to my hotel and the boat seemed a rather comfy place to lay my tired head.

5. Having an argument over the phone with my old editor about how much space to give Labour conference coverage which culminated in him threatening to "fill the paper with pictures of Kylie's arse" instead. I was laughing so much I couldn't think of a witty response.

6. Cherie Blair's attempts to get me to go soft on her husband after I interviewed him during the 2001 election campaign by sharing a bag of chips with me and telling me what a great paper The Journal was. Or maybe she was just being nice.

7. Alastair Campbell accusing me during a lobby briefing of having asked the Governor of the Bank of England whether he had stopped beating his wife. Being subjected to a full-frontal personal attack by Campbell signified your arrival as a lobby hack and, for me, this was the best bit of the whole Eddie George saga.

8. Spotting a North-East government minister lighting-up on the Commons Terrace in 1997 a few days after his press officer had told me he had given up smoking.

9. My ingenuous wife handing Nick Robinson her mobile phone so he could snap a picture of the two of us together outside No 10 following a Downing St reception. To his eternal credit, he took it.

10. A Labour press officer's unusual reaction when I told him Peter Mandelson had been involved in a traffic accident in his constituency in 1997. The accident turned out to be quite minor, but the press officer in question was so alarmed he spontaneously cracked one off.