Sunday 25 July 2010

Vote for your 10 favourite political blogs

Total Politics runs an annual "best blogs poll" - and voting for the 2010 poll closes next Saturday.

Click here to vote in the Total Politics Best Blogs Poll 2010

The poll is being jointly promoted by Total Politics, and its publisher leading Tory blogger Iain Dale, with the awards being held in association with LabourList and LibDemVoice, and promoted by blogs across the spectrum, to try to get as broad a range of contributions as possible.

You can find last year's top 100 here. Next Left was a new entry at 32, and 6th on the top 100 Labour blogs list.


The rules are simple.

1. You must vote for your ten favourite blogs and ranks them from 1 (your favourite) to 10 (your tenth favourite).
2. Your votes must be ranked from 1 to 10. Any votes which do not have rankings will not be counted.
3. You MUST include at least FIVE blogs in your list, but please list ten if you can. If you include fewer than five, your vote will not count.
4. Email your vote to toptenblogs@totalpolitics.com
5. Only vote once.
6. Only blogs based in the UK, run by UK residents or based on UK politics are eligible. No blog will be excluded from voting.
7. Anonymous votes left in the comments will not count. You must give a name
8. All votes must be received by midnight on 31 July 2010. Any votes received after that date will not count.


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PS: A very public sociologist wants you to vote for the 100 worst blogs too.

And I have just spotted one change in the rules which might cause some pointless friction in the political blogosphere: "No blog will be excluded from voting".

In every previous year blogs were allowed to exclude themselves from the voting. That is good for those who oppose awards, competitions of all kinds, and like to stick up for the stereotype that lefties oppose competitive school sports, etc.

The most prominent to do so has been Liberal Conspiracy, on the implausible grounds that the poll is somehow part of a right-wing conspiracy, and perhaps more because Sunny Hundal and Iain Dale don't like to miss the chance to take potshots at each other. Indeed, the organisers took the unusual step last year of revealing where Liberal Conspiracy would have come if it had not pulled out, rather against the spirit of their own rules.

Liberal Conspiracy won't be promoting the poll or canvassing for votes, and may be actively discouraging them. As they are one of my top ten blogs, I shall vote for them anyway!

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