Welcome, sadists, to Blog Deathmatch 2009. Political Blog owners are now, as we speak, debasing themselves across the internet soliciting votes in this year’s, “Oo’s got the best blog?’ competition. It’s cruel. It’s unusual. And yet, bloggers, being shamelessly egotistical creatures, are powerless to resist.

This year it’s not being hosted directly by Aunty Dale. As a special treat, it’s being run by his ambitious organ, “Total Politics” with the full backing of Labour Barf, and Lib Dem Voice. This makes it not just a battle between bloggers – it’s a battle between parties, too. Be still my beating (and cold, black) heart.

See, last year and all previous years it was run by Iain himself. Cynical Non-Tories said, “this is just a cheesy way to get a million links from everyone, isn’t it? Isn’t it?” The result? Tory blogs dominated. They’d have dominated anyway, but still: Bias! screamed the internet. Much stalking and bitter acrimony ensued as recriminations and accusations of a ‘fix’ were thrown around.

So being held in neutral territory means no excuses. This is a warm-up for the General Election. The outcome of this contest is the portent of what’s to come! Yes, it’s really that important!

The questions, which fall to you, are very simple:

1. Do you know of, or read, 10 or more political blogs? (that excludes, I reckon, about 80% of blog readers)
2. Can you be arsed sending an email for which there’s no reward, no benefits other than, potentially, making some big headed, egotistical twat of a blogger feel ‘a bit chuffed’ for a couple of minutes in about two months time? (that brings us down to about 2% of blog readers left)
3. Can you follow basic instructions? (there’s about 3 people left now)
4. Do you honestly, honestly have nothing better to do? (ah, you’ve all gone home)

So, look, assuming you’ve survived the cull and passed this test you’re no doubt full of the glow of being special.. really really special… and because I just can’t talk you out of it, I suggest you point your browser at the Total Politics Page Of Solicitation, where you shall receive further instruction and cake. Okay maybe not cake. Or maybe cake.

I for one will be voting for whoever does the best job of humiliating and debasing themselves in the pursuit of my vote. Stuart Sharpe’s winning by a mile so far. Don’t believe the rumours I’ve already voted – believe me: your grovelling will not be wasted.

For the curious, I came a very satisfying 46th out of the Top 50 Lib Dem blogs last time. I’d like to not appear at all, and that way I can pretend the establishment is out to get me, therefore moulding my blog into a beacon of self pitying bitter hatred for everyone else for the next year. Can’t wait!

New Wikio Blog Rankings out today. Wikio measure the number of links within RSS feeds over the last 10 months (with more recent links being more ‘valuable’ so to speak.

Like last month, I thought I’d list the Top 10 Lib Dem blogs that make it into the Top 100. Barnstorming new entry into the Top 100 for Mark Reckons, who has had an insanely good month making a huge splash on the blogosphere very quickly.  Jonathan Calder sneaks back into the Top 30. In general a great month for Lib Dem blogs, no doubt in large part due to the very Wikio Friendly activities of Lib Dem Voice recently (Daily 2×2 posts and Sunday Memes).

In other Wikio news, Jennie Rigg’s new blog is starting to overtake her old blog, too – about time too – I suspect she should get them merged into one so she can get back into this Lib Dem Top 10!

I also seem to have had a pretty good month myself, which is nice. I’d like to say thank you!

*I regret to say that I missed out Stephen Linlithgow’s blog last month. No excuse. Sorry Stephen.

The thing Labourhome always had going for it was its sheer crapness. Only the true down to earth grass roots, distant from the glamour and lavish PR (and lifestyles) of the parliamentary party could love the old Labourhome website.

The question becomes why did they redesign?

Clearly they’ve been under pressure from Labour list (thanks to the extreme publicity seeking shennanigans of their greasy former editor) and felt the need to keep up to date… but I ask you, what were they thinking?

Labourhome claims to be a site for grassroots Labour supporters. It’s meant to re-engage them.

Here’s the new logo:

Pleasant enough. There’s the tag-line… ‘back to the roots.’ So, go on, try to guess what sort of picture would go with this message?

Go on, have a guess. Maybe some workers in a factory? Maybe a single mum? Something to do with being a worker and being working class or something like that, yeah? Yeah?

Not quite. The image they’ve chosen is this:

That’s right. The image that represents the Grassroots of the Labour Party is this building, the Houses of Parliament.

Good luck with the relaunch, guys.

UPDATE: Okay, thinking about it, I’m on very thin ice here. I’m not exactly a Pro Designer myself. If Labourhome doods want to come slag off the design for this blog (or for Liberal Vision actually) then they should feel free.

For what it’s worth, and just cos I’ve got the excuse to talk about it, the ‘theme’ for this site’s design is the blueprint motif in the banner. Blueprints are great things. They remind you of engineering, of plans, of precision, and of potential. They’re instructions for something much bigger and better. That’s why I picked blueprints.

UPDATE UPDATE! Well, turns out the design’s a work in progress and they’re going to have another look. Special round of applause for heroically good tempered Andie Fairlie.

Ryan Cullen needs money. Lib Dem Blogs got suspended again, and he’s decided enough is enough – he can’t afford to keep paying the costs of running the site and is soliciting donations.

In the meantime, the best thing that you can do, if you want to support lib dem bloggers, is to link to other people’s blog posts.

I’m trying to get a feed aggregator going that might, assuming I can get it working, simulate some of the Lib Dem Blogs experience but the number of blogs are many and I’ve only had the patience to throw together about 40 or so. I’m working on it as we speak.

Please do donate cash to Lib Dem Blogs though

UPDATE: If the Yahoo Pipes thing works then it might well be possible for Ryan to significantly reduce his running costs – so it’s worth figuring out even if some kind benefactor dumps all the money he needs on him before the day is through.

UPDATE 2: Experimenting here: Lib Dem Blogs Grab Bag Alpha Feed. It’s not all Lib Dem Blogs.. it’s ones I read, ones I recognise, ones that caught my eye. I don’t know if this works. I don’t know how often it updates, or even if it ever updates. Still, it’s something for now.

This last year has seen two very interesting bloggers bust onto the Lib Dem scene. First Costigan Quist who’s made a name for himself by actually reading the details that journalists don’t. If someone says that eating custard doughnuts makes you 103% more likely to develop exploding bowel syndrome, he’s right there pointing out that what they really mean is that instead of 1 person every year, it’s 4 people every three years. This is where he’s making a real name for himself, and I hope he can keep it up.

More recently, Mark Thompson (of the Mark Reckons blog) who’s created an absolutely humongous splash very quickly with his remarkable discovery of a correlation between the size of an MP’s majority and their propensity to make claims that fail the ‘would a reasonable person think this is reasonable?’ test.

Perhaps the mentality of ‘safe seat’ MPs is different to those with tiny majorities. Perhaps there’s more of an ingrained sense of entitlement to what’s owed, of having ‘earned’ a safe seat through service to the party or through importance. Either way, this discovery has made it’s way into Polly’s column in the Guardian and Alix Mortimer asks if he’s now the most influential Lib Dem Blogger.

Once again the power of original content (rather than merely echoing what’s said elsewhere – which this post is a classic guilty example) is demonstrated, and the ability for anyone to start a blog and make an impact almost immediately is demonstrated.

Nice one Mark, keep it up