The Wardman Wire

It’s that time of year again. From Iain Dale’s blog:

We’re asking for your votes to decide the Top 100 UK Political Blogs. Simply email your Top Ten (ranked from 1 to 10) to toptenblogs@totalpolitics.com. If you have a blog, please encourage your readers to do the same. I’ll then compile the Top 100 from those that you send in. Just order them from 1 to 10. Your top blog gets 10 points and your tenth gets 1 point.

Iain’s list does a good job of letting people know what is out there, especially for less well-known blogs to get onto the edge of the radar. Most blog lists only identify a “top 10″ or “top 20″; this one does hundreds and then categorises them - so if there is only one “Green” blog (for example) that is well known, there is a chance that he other 9 on a “Green Top 10″ will get their first bite of a publicity cherry.

I haven’t decided who I am voting for, but they will be blogs that I have enjoyed and want to help get into the top 200-300 rather than the top 10 - especially writers I like who have been blogging for a couple of hundred posts and may be getting weary, or blogs that are relatively new. However, here are some blogs I will not be voting for.

• I will not be voting for Adam Boulton. I wouldn’t be anyway (see below), but the prospect of a half-naked photo clinches it.
• I will not be voting for blogs attached to media (newspapers, BBC etc), since they get all the push they need from the giant’s shoulder on which they are perched.
• I will not be voting for blogs of politicians above Local Councillor level, since they should be able to trade off their position.
• Ditto for blogs attached to significant organisations.
• Ditto for any blogs in the Wikio Top 100 (under politics, other - which are largely politics, or overall), since they don’t need the profile either.
• Ditto the Technorati Top 30,000.

If anybody wished to join me and focus your votes on giving a place in the semi-shadow to some blogs that are currently in the shade, then enjoy finding them. These are some of the blogs that I enjoy the most anyway.

One of them will be the Cynical Dragon, who has done 375 posts since he started in March and seems to think that a lot of people are “cocks”. These include Roger Farley, Paul Flynn (1), Paul Flynn (2), Paul Flynn (3), Paul Flynn (4), Paul Flynn (5), Paul Flynn (6), Paul Flynn (7), Paul Flynn (8), Paul Flynn (9), Paul Flynn (10), Paul Flynn (11) and .. er .. Paul Flynn (12). A great blog (I hope he isn’t a Civil Servant), and the other content outweighs the football, but more variety needed in the polemics (Hint: Macclesfield, Congleton).

Let me make one more suggestion: if you vote for a blog that deserves more attention, give it a review as a separate article as well - that will be a help and all bloggers like attention.

If anyone didn’t know, the Boulton and Co team are pimping themselves - offering (I assume) swimwear pictures as bait. So - if anybody has pictures of the Sky blogging team in their swimsuits or smalls, I’ll be delighted to spike their guns by publishing them here - within an editorial context of course. But it’s nice to see that Adam and Miranda have worked out who needs the makeup.