Shameless, utterly shameless
No, not Gordon Brown’s lies about public spending – I’m talking about the way that I shamelessly plug this blog when it comes to annual blog awards!
Yes, it’s that time of year again when Total Politics magazine compiles their list of the Top 100 political blogs in the UK, as voted for by you. I would be very grateful for your support, as always. Here are the voting rules, as explained by Brother Maynard from ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’:
BROTHER MAYNARD: Book of Armaments, Chapter two, Verses 9 to 21. And Iain Dale raised the Total Politics Guide to Blogging up on high, saying, ‘O Lord, bless this Thy Blogging Guide that, with it, Thou mayest gauge the popularity of blogs from across the political spectrum.’ And the Lord did grin, and the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals and fruit bats and large chu…
LFAT: Skip a bit, Brother.
BROTHER MAYNARD: And the Lord spake, saying, ‘First shalt thou decide which are thy favourite 10 blogs. No more, no less. 10 shall be the number of blogs thou shalt count, and the number of the blogs shall be 10. 11 blogs shalt thou not count, nor either count thou 9 blogs, excepting that thou then proceed to 10. 12 is right out. Once 10 blogs, being the tenth number, be reached, then thou shalt rank them from 1 to 10 (with 1 being thy favourite). If thou fails to rank thy blogs from 1 to 10, the Lord shalt ignore thy votes. Thou must include 10 blogs in thy list, else the Lord mayest blow thou into tiny pieces. Thou shalt not submit more than one set of votes, else the Lord mayest blow thou into even tinier pieces. When thou hast chosen thy favourite 10 blogs and ranked them from 1 to 10, thou shalt email thy choices to toptenblogs@totalpolitics.com. Only blogs based in the holy land of the UK, run by UK residents or based on UK politics are eligible for the Blogging Guide. Anonymous votes left in comments sections of blogs will result in the Lord smiting thy family with swine flu or, worse still, giving us another five years of Labour. Shalt thou fail to submit thy votes by 31st July 2009, the Lord shalt reject thy votes. Amen.
(for a more conventional explanation of the rules, go to Iain Dale’s blog!)
I would of course be flattered to be included in your top ten list, but in any case, happy voting!
Regards
A.Tory
Witanagemot Blogs
Dear LFAT
How can I resist your honeyed words? your fulsome blandishments have quite won me over.
Already done, last night
I too have gone down the shameless route LFAT!
Good luck! You deserve a high placing.
Best of luck chief.
I only stick to a couple of blogs that reflect my own centre-rightish leanings ever since I got barred from Nick Robinson’s blog for sticking up for the BNP’s right to be recognised as a legitimate political party. I hope you do well, there’s an element of cosy familiarity about this blog, you have a number of repeat players which gives the impression that you, and they, intend to promote debate, rather than just the production of opinionated rants which are commented on by crass idiots (see Guido).
LFAT I hope your hard work receives the recognition it deserves. I for one thoroughly enjoy reading your blog.
GOH, can’t believe it worked!
Julia and Mark, you’re too kind.
GK, I’d delighted to hear someone view this blog as a place for debate as that is exactly what I want it to be. I’m not interested in swear blogging or ranting lunatics – I want to see people attack or praise my views and start a discussion.
Measured, many thanks.
“I’m not interested in swear blogging or ranting lunatics ”
Thank you for your forbearance.
You’ll never catch me publicising something like that. Oh no.
You scratch my blog, I’ll scratch yours!!!!!!!
I’m having an Open Primary over at mine.
Of course not, Dick. Nor would I. Absolutely not.
At least I had no difficulty deciding whether LFAT was a political blog or not (see the comments…).
Help a brother out here- are group blogs allowed or not?
“Help a brother out here- are group blogs allowed or not?”
I hope so – I nominated one. Can’t see that they are explicitly excluded.
Asquith, you’ll be fine.
Glad to see that, like me, other people would not stoop so low as to beg for votes. We have principles, you know.
If group blogs are allowed I will make my choices accordingly. If they reject my wisdom that’s their loss
Personally, I would never stoop so low as to beg for votes. Who would do such a thing?
Technically, there’s no real point voting for me, anyway – I’m fairly certain I’m not on the Total Politcs directory. I like to keep a low profile, you see. The power behind the throne, that’s me…
Group blogs are allowed, as far as I’m aware, asquith – see if you can spot ConservativeHome on last year’s list, that’ll tell you for certain.
As for who’s going on my list… Well, I suppose that’s still wide open at this point…
Hmmm… Where on Earth did this brown envelope appear from?!
No problem. But I hope there may also be a few votes for Nightjack too.