Hurrah! It seems that I am apparently now officially the 47th best Liberal Democrat blog! I am so chuffed! 
The rankings for Iain Dale’s 2007 guide to political blogging have been done by ‘a panel of Lib Dem bloggers’ and that’s where they’ve put me - at least ahead of most (but perhaps not quite all) the non-blogs which are either not really blogs at all, or only updated once a month.
But I am not going to rest on my laurels. I have set my sights even higher for the future. Next year I am aiming to be 46th best!
September 26th, 2007 at 11:08
“It seems that I am apparently now officially the 47th best Liberal Democrat blog!”
Only in the case you are admitting that Iain Dale is in the position to rank Liberal Democrat blogs officially.
September 26th, 2007 at 12:38
Meg - yes, indeed - though although Mr D has published the rankings, they were actually chosen by a group of well-known and well-respected LD bloggers (though one of them did tell me that my name wasn’t on the list of ones they were asked to rank, which makes it a bit surprising I got anywhere at all!).
September 26th, 2007 at 14:20
Iain Dale asked rankings from a group of well-known and well-respected LD bloggers, but we don’t know from how many, and whom, except for those cases who told so, and how did Iain Dale use the data they send him. In theory he might even have deleted it right away and made his own list. Then he could have used the respect Lib Dems feel for these bloggers for his own purposes. For instance to point out, that Ming’s blog was only the number 100. Or perhaps not, but the point is that we don’t know.
September 26th, 2007 at 15:50
There could be Martians living among us as well…We just don’t know.
Eek!
September 27th, 2007 at 2:53
Meg
Quaequam blag!
I can reveal all. The list was dictated by Erik Von Daniken.
Suggest less mad conspiracy theories and more politics. Or even better - email Iain Dale and ask him who the others were. I don’t think he has the time or the inclination for such plots.
On the Ming blog, I’d suggest it suffered as it is a right royal pain to navigate and is somewhat “press-releasy” (i.e., not a blog!). No category navigation. No date navigation. And written in the third person much of the time. Work to do there.
Matt
September 27th, 2007 at 2:57
Ai Caramba!! I have it. Iain Dale is unmasked.
Iain had the London Eye painted grey against a blue sky, so that together it gives a subliminal shade of the new Tory blue to steal all the Lib Dem voters from Simon Hughes. It works because blue is the complementary colour to orange.
It must be Simon Hughes because for Labour voters the complementary shade would be green.
September 27th, 2007 at 14:53
Matt and (not so) “Wit and Wisdom”. Very funny … or not. It’s not a conspiracy theory. We actually don’t know, who were invited by Iain Dale to express their opinions, and thus we also don’t know how well-respected they actually were. And anyway, Iain Dale made a choice based on his own judgement already when he decided who to invite. Calling me mad doesn’t change that.
And I’m actually not so concerned about whom Iain Dale invited, I’m concerned about certain Lib Dems handing over the authority to tell who is a good Lib Dem blogger for a cheerleader of a competing party. But if you prefer to give Iain Dale the last say on who is a good Lib Dem blogger, just be my guests. You could learn some basic manners, though.
September 30th, 2007 at 18:04
While I don’t take quite such an extreme view of Iain Dale’s behaviour as Meg perhaps does, I do actually share some of the problems that she has with the way that we Lib Dems (and others) simply accept and reinforce his hegemony of UK political blogging. I don’t think he is evil but I do think we too often forget that he is a Tory, and therefore allow ourselves to reinforce the idea that he tries to create, that suits him and the Conservative party very well, that ‘the big blogosphere tent is blue’. He and I exchanged a couple of comments on this here.
I had meant my original post above generally to be somewhat ironic - including the word ‘officially’ - but I perceive that it does not seem to be being read that way…
But of course all this is as nothing compared to my euphoria at being listed at number 285 in Iain’s list of all the top UK political bloggers, from all parties and none!