Top Ten Blogs

I have been relatively busy recently so here is a post which doesn’t really require too much thinking (by me anyway).

It is also a rare occasion when I will not in some way directly involve mention of the European Union (oh no, I did it again!) or what I would deem similarly serious political matters or events.

So, as it happens, I noticed that a few of the self obsessed egos who involved themselves in 18 Vanity Street (which amusingly collapsed last year) but chose not to move sideways onto Stephan Shakespeare’s PoliticsHome project have reappeared in the team behind a new magazine called TotalPolitics.

Rather unsurprisingly the TotalPolitics magazine (much like its staff) will really only be interested in the soap opera of the Westminster Village rather than anything that could be even considered vaguely serious. I am not the only one of this opinion.

Yet, despite the magazine being funded in part by Lord Ashcroft and released to much fan fare on some few blogs, I think it may now well be a good time to place your bets on how long it will be before it goes the way of Doughty Street down the pan.

Since TotalPolitics will be sent free of charge to all politicians from our irrelevant MPs down to local district level and also many journalists, this seems to cancel out most of the people who may have actually bothered to buy it in the first place (another reason I think that this is no more than yet another ego trip for its producers and editors.) I mean really, would anyone actually want to pay to read yet more Westminster gossip – especially when (if you so chose) you can read it on the net for free?

Still, until the time that TotalPolitics completely collapses and disappears off the radar, I thought I would take the opportunity to participate in their Top 100 UK Political Blogs. You have to rate your top ten, so here below are mine:

1. EU Referendum
2. Peter Hitchens
3. Sam Tarran
4. Daniel Hannan
5. Archbishop Cranmer
6. ConservativeHome
7. Burning Our Money
8. The Huntsman
9. England Expects
10. Bruno Waterfield

I suspect however that we can all probably guess who will make the top of the final published list – Iain Dale, Paul Staines, Phil Hendren etc. the usual group of self promoting friends who enjoy nothing more than engaging in meaningless tittle-tattle and largely irrelevant gossip.

Much like the red top newspapers these blogs tend to have the most readers (and therefore will accumulate the most votes,) not because they are actually any good in my opinion, but simply because they have become a well established set (due to the fact that they continually promote one another) and that, bar one or two, they publish the sort of Westminster village crap that those in the Westminster village like reading.

In 2006 I managed to make 51st on APCO Wordwide’s list of Top Conservative Blogs – but I have a sneaking suspicion that I won’t be on there this time around. Also I challenge those on the list above to come up with their top ten blogs – not that they will of course but I thought I would just mention it anyway.

Post Comment: