The state of the Lib Dem blogosphere
Dear readers,
As I’m sure some of you know, Total Politics are currently releasing the results of their annual blog poll over the course of several days. As a member of the Conservative blogosphere I’m probably a little too biased to comment on what the last 12 months have been like in that particular area but I’ve found the Lib Dem and Labour poll results extremely interesting. Today and tomorrow, I will therefore be giving my take on what has been happening and add in some possible explanations as to the ups and downs within each poll. First up is the Lib Dems, and here is their Top 20 poll result for 2009 with last year’s position in brackets:
1 Charlotte Gore
2 (1) LibDem Voice
3 Himmelgarten Cafe
4 (3) Norfolk Blogger
5 Mark Reckons
6 Liberal Vision
7 (44) Caron’s Musings
8 (5) Liberal England
9 (2) People’s Republic of Mortimer
10 (4) Quaequam Blog
11 (15) Stephen’s Linlithgow Journal
12 (18) Jennie Rigg
13 (11) Cicero’s Songs
14 (7) Millennium Dome Elephant
15 (6) Lynne Featherstone MP
16 Dude the Dog
17 (8) Peter Black AM
18 (9) Love & Liberty
19 Andrew Reeves
20 (39) Irfan Ahmed
The first thing that jumped out at me was the stellar rise to blogging fame (assuming that there is such a thing) of Charlotte Gore, Himmelgarten Cafe and Mark Reckons who have all leaped straight into the top five despite only appearing within the last year. As I mentioned in my recent post on the Wikio blog ranking system, they have clearly captured a lot of people’s attention and full credit to them for doing so. Not unsurprisingly, with three new entrants in the top five, a number of last year’s successes have slipped a little, such as Norfolk Blogger, Liberal England, Alix Mortimer, Quaequam etc. In fact, what you can see is that almost the entire top ten from last year has slipped several places down since the 2008 poll. What does this tell us? Well, in my humble opinion, I think this is a clear indication of two things:
1. There were not that many quality Lib Dem bloggers around in 2008 (although this has certainly changed in the past 12 months). For example, I visit LDV on a fairly regular basis but to be honest I think they have a mix of respectable and average writers. There is an almighty gap between what LDV does and what something like ConHome does, although this could be a matter of resources to some extent. I just feel that sites such as LDV lack a bit of quality, incisiveness and candour - something that can hardly be said of people like Charlotte Gore and Mark Reckons (who almost manage to inject a little humour, anger and frustration into their posts which is also notably lacking from LDV). In fairness, LDV writers are generally good, but compared to something like LabourList or ConHome they simply don’t have the breadth of opinion or ideas to really make a strong case as the leading source of Lib Dem opinion. Norfolk Blogger has done a good job of keeping himself at the top of the list, and I suspect that the Norwich by-election rekindled his enthusiasm for blogging after he did a little soul searching earlier in the year. I think Quaequam and Alix Mortimer suffer a little from not posting regularly enough, even if their writing quality has not changed much over the last year, and I’m sure Lynne Featherstone and Peter Black will be a little disappointed to slip down the rankings. That said, I think this Top 20 is an accurate reflection of who contributes the most to the Lib Dem blogosphere.
2. The Lib Dem blogosphere has not yet reached its saturation point. As I mentioned above, there are a number of new entrants into the Top 20 this year for the Lib Dems. However, this pales in comparison to the number of new blogs across the whole Top 75. From positions 21 to 75, only 15 of those blogs were in the Total Politics poll last year, meaning than there are over 40 new blogs in the Top 75 as a whole. Compared to the Conservative blogosphere, particularly the upper reaches, this is an incredible statistic. To my mind, it shows how far the Lib Dems blogosphere was from saturating i.e. when new blogs (bar those that receive private funding or are written by someone with serious name recognition) find it almost impossible to break into the top rankings. It’s hard to say whether three more blogs could repeat what Charlotte, HC and Mark Reckons have achieved this year as I think you can argue it either way, but there is certainly going to be less elbow room at the top in 2010.
Thoughts and feedback welcome as always!
Witanagemot Blogs
“In fact, what you can see is that almost the entire top ten from last year has slipped several places down since the 2008 poll. What does this tell us? “
It could just tell us that people love novelty..?
But no, it does indeed speak to the quality of the LibDem writing. I think Charlotte and Mark Reckons are the only LibDem blogs I read, mainly because their first instinct isn’t to reach for the ‘Ban it!’ impulse every time.
Julia, novelty value might sound like a good explanation, but compare this to the impact of novelty value in the Conservative blogosphere in 2008/9 (which is almost zero) when it comes to the top ten blogs in particular.
Good analysis, but I think you miss the ideological change that’s occurred this year for the Lib Dems.
There’s this vast ideological split through the middle of the Lib Dems between the Liberals and the Social Democrats. Charlotte, Costigan and Mark all come from the liberal side. All three of them are ‘classic liberals’ – as JuliaM says their first instincts go against the ‘ban it’ sensibility elsewhere in the Lib Dems. People like James Graham are the democrats.
Judging by these results (and we should, of course, not judge solely by these results), it seems the classic liberals are winning ‘the internet’. I mean, compare the brand new Liberal Vision blog to the Social Liberal Forum – LV came SIXTH, SLF isn’t in the top 20.
Heeresiarch said yesterday that people like Charlotte could turn him toward the Lib Dems, if the party leadership started to move in that direction. I agree. If those guys can continue this movement they’re trying to start within the party towards becoming the ‘Liberal Liberals’, they’ll find an awful lot of support on the internet that they won’t get if they continue with their nannying approach.
So yeah, I think those guys are really making waves within their party and it’s incredibly impressive to watch. It’ll be interesting to see if they can actually make a difference to the party as a whole.
I find Lynne Featherstone a good writer.
Stu, interesting points. The party leadership isn’t going liberal, trust me. Blair tried to drag a party membership full of union members, socialists and a lot of other lefties and look what happened. If Clegg tries to do the same, he’ll meet the same fate. The Lib Dems currently stand for absolutely nothing at all so any change would be an improvement, though.
James, I’m not a big fan and judging by her ranking slip it seems as though she isn’t really making waves.
Interesting post LFAT and thanks for your kind words. You’re not too bad yourself
Even in the short time I have been blogging (since last November) there are some good strong LD blogs coming through. I expect some of these to be challenging for the top spots by this time next year.
But are these new blogs going to do enough to push you out of the top five or are you and your fellow 2009 high achievers going to remain top of the pile for a long time to come, I wonder…?
I feel sorry for Lib Dem bloggers; at least the Tory, Libertarian, Nat, Labour and nutter-leftie bloggers have a typical default position on a majority of matters, therefore you have an idea of what to expect even before you bother reading. As much as I try, I struggle to fathom what, if anything, the Lib Dems actually stand for, or what their policies are, aside from Europhilia.
Bring back Chic Kennedy; at least we knew what he stood for- getting bevvied.
LFAT- I’ve been meaning to say, congrats on the decent rank on the Centre-Right (I think) Blog list. I’d seen it on Dale’s blog a week ago or so but haven’t yet quite had the chance to drop you a line.
GK, a range of opinions is a good thing for the Lib Dem blogosphere. When the real Lib Dem party is completely rudderless then I guess it might attract a few more people to start blogging and getting angry about it – Charlotte Gore being a case in point! Thanks for the congrats, I will say a big thank you once all the poll results have been released.
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