I go into a shop. It’s brightly lit with smiley, happy staff working behind the tills. I see rows upon rows of what look like cereal boxes, but they’re not full of breakfasty goodness. They’re full of boxed lives, ready to be picked out and lived.

On the left hand side of the shop I can see a lot of red boxes. Some have ‘Human Male Life’ written on them, others have ‘Human Female Life.’ You can, apparently, trade in one for the other if you’re so inclined, which is nice.

Labour brand lives seem fairly comprehensive. Everything you need in that one box, along with a full set of rules and, it seems, a rather onerous set of terms and conditions, but let’s not quibble.

As far as off the shelf lives go, it’s got the lot. Sure, the sticker price is pretty expensive – nearly half of the money you earn throughout your life, but then it does do all your thinking for you, too.

On the other side, there’s a bunch of blue boxes. They’re Conservative Brand lives, and they’re a little cheaper than the Labour lives, although not by much. The terms and conditions are just as exacting – although different – to the Labour brand lives, but it’s still fairly comprehensive. There’s also a little more choice. There’s a ‘Conservative Worker!’ and ‘Conservative Businesswoman!’ and ‘Conservative Housewife!’ and a few others like that.

This shop sucks really, but everyone’s in here – business is good. Lots of people picking out a box from one side or the other.

I leave, crossing the road, and see a rather dingy looking old shop with dusty windows and a canny old goat behind the counter.  I go inside, and I realise it’s selling the same thing as the big Lives R Us shop, but here they do things differently. Every single box is different. They’re like plug-ins. You can mix and match and customise your life exactly as you want, and there’s even a special box you can buy that lets you create your own plug-in modules. I can’t believe my luck – it’s like a dream come true.

“How’s business?” I ask the old man and he sighs, telling me I’m the first customer he’s had in weeks.

I look out the window and across at the slick Lives R Us chain store, with my bundle of boxes in my hands and I wonder, momentarily, what’s wrong with me.

To celebrate the close of voting for Iain Dale’s ‘Oo’s got the best blog then?’ competition (in which, if you recall, I’m aiming to beat last year’s 46th ‘Best’ Lib Dem blog) I thought I’d post my own highly suspect guide to writing a political blog in the form of another Top 10 list. Follow this and you can’t possibly go wrong. Trust me.. would I lie to you?

#10. Join a Party

Seems obvious really, but you’re not allowed to blog about politics unless you’re a party member, and importantly if you’re not writing about general party politics or political ideology then you’re not really writing about politics at all. So there.

#9. Make sure you’re On Message

Before you post a single thing, make sure you’re familiar with your party’s policies and principles. This is crucial – going against your party is the fast track to a spanking from London and other party members turning their back on your shiny new blog. You want people to like you, right? So make sure you’re telling everyone what they want to hear.

#8. Blog Design REALLY MATTERS

To be a truly successful blogger you MUST:

- Lots and lots of advertising. Sign up with Google Adwords, Message Space and every other thing that’ll have you. A blog without adverts doesn’t look professional.

- Lots of buttons, widgets and if your blogroll doesn’t have at least 200 links then you’re going to look like a noob. Don’t be a noob. Think of it like modding a car. If you can fit it, you should fit it, because the more junk the MOAR AWESOME your blog is.

#7. Troll like you Mean It

Trolling is the art of being deliberately provocative in the aim of getting a reaction. As far as blogging goes the winner is the person who gets the most reactions – the ultimate win is to troll the BBC or Sky News, but that’s only for the professionals – for now, you want to troll other bloggers. Get yourself over to Wikio, go through the Top 100 and find something you disagree with – then write your own response – don’t worry about being right or wrong – the important thing is to be as annoying and stupid as possible, because that’s what gets the biggest reaction. Link back to the original post and any other blog posts you can find that might be relevant.

Those bloggers, being notified about the links, will stumble across your effort and, amazed by your stupidity, will feel unable to resist explaining to their readers why you’re so incredibly wrong.

Congratulations. You’ve successfully trolled. Don’t worry about what people will think of your incredibly stupid writing. There’s always people that will agree, no matter what you write. Just hold your nerve.

#7a (Bonus) Pick a fight with Tim Ireland

The fast track to internet fame, if your trolling isn’t working out as well as you hope, is to pick a fight with Tim Ireland. You won’t regret it. As much free publicity as you can possibly handle is yours, assuming you find the right combination of words to incur Tim’s wrath. A little bit of research is all it takes to discover the buttons to push.

It doesn’t have to be Tim, of course – the trick is to find a blogger that cares what complete strangers think, unload your opinion in their face then wait for steam to come out of their ears.

#6. Jargon makes you look clever

The more ‘isms’ the better, but that’s just the start. You must – absolutely must – reference as many philosophers, politicians and political science jargon as you can possibly squeeze into each post. The trick is to hide the fact you haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about in huge layer of academic waffle so that the readers blame themselves for not understanding what you’re talking about. Everyone will assume you’re a genius and will go out of their way to boast that they think your blog is superb because it makes them look clever, too.

#5. Facts are for losers

The last resort of the loser who’s been on the receiving end of a rhetorical blog-lashing at your merciless hands is quoting facts. Bah. Facts. Truth. Reality.

These things are NOT the concern of the successful blogger. The correct response to someone presenting you with ‘facts’ to counter one of your blog posts is to call them names and make suggestions about their personality. After all, someone might be armed with facts but no-one wants to take the side of a paedophile. Fight the man, not the ball. If you punch the man in the nuts, you’ve got the ball all to yourself.

#4. Sycophancy will get you Everywhere

If trolling doesn’t work, the alternative is to flatter the arse off as many top bloggers as you possibly can. Seriously. Write blog posts gushing about the efforts of anyone you like – just make sure you really pile on the love. Trust me, this never fails. Just make sure you flatter lots of bloggers – you don’t want to look like a stalker, which is what might happen if you focus on just one person.

#3. Never give up. Never surrender

Occasionally name calling might not work. You might be tempted to admit defeat, to say, hey, I’m wrong. Some people on the internet have occasionally read books and might actually understand the subject you’re talking about better than you do.

Trust me – never give up. You give up even once it looks really bad. If you hold your ground and just shout louder and louder then they’ll respect your tenacity – and don’t forget, no matter what you say there’s always going to be people that will take your side – especially if you stick with the Golden Rule number 9 – Always Be On Message. The weight of a whole party behind you… woo.. they can’t argue with that, no matter how many ‘books’ they’ve read.

If you give up then those people taking your side will be crushed. You’ve not just admitted you’re wrong – you’ve told your newfound followers that they’re wrong too… and they won’t forgive you for that easily.

No, the trick is to stick to your guns, no matter what. People respect that.

#2. In case of Emergency, invoke Cultural Relativism

You can argue against someone’s opinion, but you can’t argue with the fact that it is someone’s opinion. As far as blogging goes, this is the magic ingredient. “Yes,” you’ll write, “but it’s what I believe, and who’s to say what I believe is any less valid than what you believe?” and, dumbfounded they’ll admit they’re powerless to argue and promptly declare you the winner.

If someone starts spouting nonsense about how there are some things that are a matter of fact rather than opinion, condemn them as old fashioned absolutists and remember step 5 – name calling is a way to make sure people don’t want to side with your enemy.

#1. Always Invoke The Majority

As far as ‘can’t lose’ strategies go, you’ve already got a few – stick with the Party line and you’ll have an army of people with your ‘back’ as they say. Fight the man, not the ball to avoid getting into debates about ‘facts’. Invoke cultural relativism so you reduce everything to ‘you’ve got your opinion, I’ve got mine’. This turns political debates into little more than popularity contests – so armed with flattery and trolling you’ll no doubt be able to declare yourself the ‘winner’ of all your blogging battles.

What ties all this together though? What’s the true secret to becoming a true ‘teflon blogger’ that causes outrage (and thus wins lots of readers and followers)? It’s invoking the majority. If ‘everyone’ thinks it, then it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. Your opponents will realise they’re not just arguing with you – they’re arguing against everyone, and that makes them some sort of internet crazy and thus the loser by default.

There you have it. Charlotte Gore’s Guide to Ultimate Blogging Success. Let’s hope this time next year someone who’s read this and taken it to heart will find themselves in Iain’s Top Blogs list. Let’s face it, how can you lose?

A quick flick over to the BBC’s website and I see this handsome headline on the politics page:

“Election not in bag, says Cameron“

It’s a curious thing, being certain to win. Cameron has to avoid looking triumphalist, smug, or complacent, otherwise winning might not be quite so certain. He’s also got to keep his supporters and voters eager to vote – something put at risk by a foregone conclusion.

This is straight out of Tony Blair’s Election Playbook, funnily enough. Tony went to enormous lengths to play down expectations running up to elections, to send out the message that the Tories had a realistic shot at winning if Labour voters stayed at home. The other fear Tony had was that a certain Labour landslide would motivate Tory voters to come out and vote the opposite way.

For Cameron it’s the same thing – he desperately needs Tory turnout to be very high, and he needs to avoid a sudden unexpected return of Labour voters who, fearing a Tory landslide hold their noses and go to the polls at the last minute.

What’s intriguing to me is that this seems to confirm that Cameron does, in fact, think the election is in the bag: A universal truth about politicians is that when they’re tub-thumping and bombastic, they’re usually weak and uncertain. When they’re appearing weak and uncertain it’s because they’re very much in control and strong.

Consider Brown’s bullish performances in the House and Minister’s performances on television. You see them feigning confidence and strength, telling people that they can win, pretending to be in control of the country. The reality is the exact opposite.

Cameron’s switched to humble, modesty mode. In other words, he’s got Gordon by the nuts and he knows it.

So, enjoying my holiday I’ve been on a bit of a film watching bender, having crammed in more films in the last 3 days than I thought humanly possible. The housemate’s off on a literal mercy mission so I’ve got the Sky HD box and the Playstation 3 to myself. Oh happy days.

I’ve decided to experiment with doing film reviews. Of course, with this being a politics blog you’ll expect me to run things through some sort of ideological filter – and that’s exactly what you’re going to get.

First up:

The Film: The Day the Earth Stood Still

The Gist: Intergalactic Eco-Communists claim dibs on the Earth

Who’s in it: Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connelly, Kathy Bates

Who made it: IMDB is your geeky friend

So, I was suckered into renting this film thanks to nostalgic love for both Keanu and Jennifer. Sure, Keanu’s never been able to act but then I’ve never really been able to resist watching any film that he’s in at least once… in fairness, often only once.

It’s your standard alien arrives on earth, humans act like complete dicks, alien goes on killing spree sort of movie, but it’s got a twist. You see, the alien’s (played by Keanu) killing spree is motivated by his desire to save the earth.

You know… save the Earth from us.

Apparently there’s only so many planets in the universe capable of supporting life, so the fact that humans are ‘destroying’ it (it doesn’t say explicitly how we’re destroying it) is a big problem for those other aliens out in the universe that want a crack at living here at some point in the future. Oh, and the other things living on this planet too.

“What are you doing on our planet?” says Kathy Bates, playing a dick politician.

“Your planet?” says Keanu, doing his best impression of a human being but still coming across as an animatronic.

“Yes, Earth” replies Kathy.

“It’s not yours” says Keanu. Oo, you’re thinking. Profound, isn’t it?

And that’s really about it. Much running around is done, lots of pleading and begging to save the human race until a wonderful compromise is achieved after the alien discovers – and I’m wretching just writing this – that human beings are capable of love and beauty, not just destruction and death. After this moving appeal to the alien’s emotions, humanity is given a reprieve and sent, rather instantly, back to the stone age – you know, the good old days when life expectancy was about 30 and virtually everyone on earth was a peasant doing subsistence farming just to stay alive. Boy, those were the days.

In other words, humanity’s ability to progress technologically to the point where they could go to other planets is permanently crippled by aliens who’ve already reached that level of ability – they won, so they get to set the rules. Thanks guys.

Of course, transpose ‘Earth’ to ‘China’ and ‘Aliens’ to ‘The West’ and you’ve got essentially a very scary horror film for our industrialising friends.

Verdict:

Watch it if you’re a Genocidal Green. You’re going to love it. Humans get pwned!

Bloggers – from across the political spectrum – should be rightly humbled by the fortunes of LPUK in Norwich. Just 36 votes. It seems that the readers of LPUK blogs, although there’s a lot of them, either don’t live in Norwich, stayed at home or worse – voted for the Tories.

See, the Tories seem to be able to have it both ways. You’ve got Dave “I’m not a libertarian” Cameron using their party’s libertarians as political whipping boys to demonstrate his own Blue Labour credentials, yet many people still seem to think that if you believe in economic and personal freedom that the Tories are a perfectly good home.

They’re no more a good home than the Lib Dems, and that’s a fact. I stay the Lib Dems because libertarianism is just another word for Liberal, and I do my bit trying to help keep this strand liberal thought alive in this party on a point of principle. It might seem like a stupid waste of everyone’s time but I wouldn’t really be a liberal if I didn’t insist on doing things my way.

These things are going to seem a lot more clear once the Tories take over. Parties in power are what they are. Parties not yet in power are whatever the voters and supporters hope they are (hello, Obama!) – something currently working in the Tories favour. But then, people who call themselves socialists vote Labour in preference to parties like the Socialist Worker’s Party out of pragmatism and realism. Compromise is an ugly, ugly thing.

So, back to the point – blogs alone, it seems, are not going to win elections for LPUK. They clearly should have attracted a good chunk of the 11 in 20 that didn’t want to vote for anyone, which seems to be the fundamental flaw in libertarian political movement (and the NOTA party, and the ‘put a real person in parliament’ campaign.) All these movements have, in common, the desire to attract people who are currently disengaged from mainstream politics.

They don’t vote though. They’re not going to vote, either. You need a personal connection with people to make them care enough to go out and vote for you, and blogs alone – at least so far – aren’t going to achieve that.

Leaflets don’t achieve that either. Let’s face it, political leaflets are unsolicited junk mail at the end of the day, treated accordingly and potentially with a lower than normal response rate. It’s a dismal, pitiful excuse for campaigning – why, in all seriousness, would anyone think that a sheet of paper shoved through a door is ever going to be enough to persuade someone to leave their home and cast a vote, especially for a party other than the Big Three? Affiliation with the Big Three is a seal of approval for a candidate, the value of which depends on the value people place in the parties themselves. The value of approval by an unknown party is worthless, so a single, simple leaflet is also worthless.

So what now? Now people who want to change politics need to start pushing campaigning to another level. Political movements – successful movements – cannot exist in a vacuum completely disconnected from people’s lives. The Labour movement got to people through the workplace, through trade union membership. Conservatives, traditionally speaking, got to people through churches and other society functions.

We still see some of this – politicians who want to get ahead need to get themselves into as many clubs, societies, committees and working groups as they can, to meet as many of the influential people as possible, although this seems mostly to serve to establish themselves as “pillars of the community,” so to speak. This might help boost their Political CV, but does it really replace that sort of relationship with a political movement seen in the early days of Trade Unionism? Of course not.

So where’s the social connection between political movement of the future and people going to come from? “The Internet” seems like the obvious answer, but that’s not a personal connection, it doesn’t reach those people who don’t think and breathe politics like we do. The internet is the means of organising the people who are going to do the ‘connecting’, but the bit in-between, that’s what’s missing.

What’s the answer?