Who's talking to who?

The 'Total Politics Guide to Political Blogging 2008-9' has recently been published, online here. It has all sorts of charts for differnt types of blog, for example the 'top 100 right of centre blogs'. I'm struck by how few I know, and how much fewer I'd know if Matt Wardman hadn't roped me in to the writing team for the Wardman Wire (Matt makes an appearance in one of the lists). Here's the top 20 political blogs overall - see p10 of the report for the key, and what you have to do to qualify. Number in brackets is last years position:

1 Guido Fawkes LI (2)
2 Iain Dale CO (1)
3 Conservative Home CO (4)
4 Dizzy Thinks CO (3)
5 Political Betting NA (5)
6 Devil’s Kitchen LI (6)
7 Spectator Coffee House ME (9)
8 Burning our Money CO (12)
9 John Redwood MP CO (42)
10 Ben Brogan ME (-)
11 EU Referendum RW (20)
12 Tim Worstall UK (15)
13 Tom Harris MP LA (-)
14 Archbishop Cranmer CO (13)
15 LibDem Voice LD (54)
16 Mr Eugenides CO (16)
17 Hopi Sen LA (-)
18 Daniel Hannan MEP CO (85)
19 Three Line Whip ME (-)
20 Stumbling & Mumbling LW (70)

I've looked at 6-8 of these in the last year, and probably none the year before that. It's a reminder of how much of blogland is in-house conversations. Cranmer, whatever you think of his views, is one of the few crossovers between religion and politics.

One problem is that if you're not an 'expert' in a particular field, it's easy to get shouted down. There's all sorts of political, scientific, cultural etc. things I'd love to spout off about, but most of it will be ill-informed, and if you're not one of the big hitters then nobody will really listen to you anyway. I'm still not quite sure what to think that the most popular post ever on this blog was a review of 'The Choir: Boys Don't Sing' on BBC2, whilst lots of other stuff which is probably more important, or more thought through, has disappeared into the dark matter of cyberspace.

Anyway, one more for the road. My latest 'Touching Base' for the Wardman Wire, on political conferences, family policy, whether Nick Clegg writes speeches for John Sentamu, and other meanderings, is here.