1. An early description of La Nuit des Musees in Lausanne.  I still don’t know whether anything like this happens in the UK but if any local councillors are listening…
2. How it might be possibly to invigorate the economy in the world’s poorest regions through science.
3. I still have this idea in the back of my head even if others seem less enthused.
4. My final post from Switzerland, looking at life in the Alpine enclave.

And if you still have time, you should still watch The Wire instead of Dr Who (just put that one in to piss off Alex!)

Best new Liberal Democrat blog

• It hasn’t quite been clarified as to whether she is eligible for this award, but if so, my first choice for best newcomer goes to Jennie at the Gob.  Why? Well a) I think she comes from the same brand of liberalism as I do (essentially the “Will you just eff off and leave me alone, and by the way nice coat” strain), b) she is a might more interesting than most, and c) her analysis of events always seems to me to be spot on.

If she doesn’t qualify then I will pick someone else (NB. Just, if you were wondering, I do qualify for this category.  You know, if you were wondering.)

Best Blog from a Liberal Democrat holding office

Tricky one this, but for all the right reasons:

• You have the blogging MP’s such as Featherstone, ol’ Webbo and the Hem-monster all blogging well about their respective briefs or issues close to their hearts.
• You’ve got the politicians from the hinterlands such as Peter Black, who seems to be one of the most popular bloggers around, regardless of political affiliation
• You got blogging lords, most evident in Ros Scott, but also some Lib Dem lords blogging as part of Lords of the Blog.
• and of course you’ve got the various councillors dotted around the country telling us all about their small corner of Britain.

So who to choose, who to choose…

• My cheer goes to Mary Reid.  I have never even been to Kingston but I find now that I have a certain affection for the place.  She is also a cheerleader for the use of new technology in politics to get the message to as many people as possible.

Best use of blogging or social networking by a Liberal Democrat:

This one is tricky as well but unfortunately for the wrong reasons:

• Nothing really stands out as amazing. I never really got into Twitter so anything such as Brian Paddick’s twitter interview passed me by.  Beyond that, what has been done?  I get lots of messages on Facebook from various people for various causes but I have trouble getting overly interested. 
• For this I would probably choose the “No to ID cards” video, with special mention going to banana pet man.

Best Posting on a Liberal Democrat blog

• There are quite a few individual blog posts that could be worthy of nominations.  Most posts coming out of the Stockley, Goldie, Gore, Mortimer and Wilcock stables are worth reading a number of times.  But Jock Coats is the only blogger who consistently writes posts that make you really question the nature of liberalism.  From his list of posts I would choose his recent post Unconditional benefits: now is the time to smash that “cosy consensus”.  This post (and its two follow ups that Jock had to write to deal with all the discussion it generated, unfortunately from outside the Lib Dems) nicely summarises what he considers as issues fundamental to Liberal policy.

Best non-Liberal Democrat politics blog

Outside the incestuous world of LD blogs my political blog reading comes from Iain, CH, DK, Tim, Tim, Mark, Unity and LC.

• Iain Dale I don’t find a particularly good read but can be good for bile-raising.
• Ditto also for Liberal Conspiracy, it can be informative and sometimes a good read but mainly I come away glad that I am not a member of the Labour party and that I know what the word ‘liberal’ means.
• DK, what to say, swears a lot. Fun.
• ToryHome is funny, in a foaming, mad as a box of spanners way. Or it would be if they weren’t going to be in charge of the country in two years time.
• Tim (Worstall) can be good for tearing apart idiot economics.
• Tim (Ireland) is good for pointing out when other bloggers are being idiots.
• Mark Wadsworth is someone I find it hard to disagree with.
• But the winner in this category for me is Unity at the Ministry of Truth.  His/Her posts are true essays but are so worth reading if you have the time.  He does something that gives blogging a good name - he takes an issue and goes to the  heart of it, what MSM should be doing but seems to have given up on.

(Special mention in this category from me would have to also go to Lee Griffin who I haven’t read on a regular basis but it seems is definitely someone I should)

Liberal Democrat Blog of the Year

So I think we have quite a few worthy blogs within our little band.  There is the old guard of James, Jonathan and Paul, showing us young scamps how it is done.  You’ve got that young buck writing the OneHourAhead blog.  There are the thoughtful bloggers such as Neil, Simon, Jock and Tristan.  There is OneHourAhead.  There are the quick, punchy, spicy bloggers such as Jo and Nich.  (cough) OneHourAhead.  The people looking to just make the world a bit more of a respectable place to live such as Jo, Linda and Mat. OHA.  The people just blogging about the own part of the world such as Steve and Richard. And now the place seems to be swarming with bloody youngsters like Ali, Irfan, and James.   And there are many, many more. And an Elephant.

• But, as with the Dale blog list, the blogger of the year for me is Alix. The writing, topics and ideas are better than elsewhere. Nuff said.

* I think we can all tell from the extravagant use of commas in that sentence that, actually, I might not be the best around!

10.     She’s a baroness, she’s from Suffolk, what more could you want.  In at 10, it’s Mrs Valladares

9.      One half of the Lib Dem Duo , MatGB seems to know everything, and he looks like he can rock out.  Keeping the scene ALIVE!!

8.      Resplendent, redoubtable, radical, real and apparently reluctant, a climber at 8 - Charlotte Gore.

7.      A political blog that is unique in never have politics on it.  At 7 I have voted for the absorbingly quaint Just 474 votes to win.

6.      His posts seem to be more intermittent these days but still each one is crafted with elan. Hug him if you want, but he is probably carrying a knife these days, it’s Jonny Wright at number 6.

5.      This wouldn’t be a blog countdown without one of the godfathers of the scene - Paul Walter, burbling since 1892.

4.      Adding some intellectual content to the Lib Dem blogosphere and channeling Ricardo on a daily basis, at No. 4 it is Jock Coats over at his place.

3.      A non lib-demmer in at 3 - Brevity may not be his strong suit, but meticulously pulling apart the untruths of Westminster certainly is - Unity over at the Ministry of Truth.

2.      The other half of the LD duo in my list: Jennie from the gob.  I have pillaged her blog on number of occasions for some tasty blog morsels and as I have said before you don’t get posts like this on many political blogs.

and still at number 1, beating even Bryan Adams’ time at the top, for the 40th week running, it has to be…

…Ms Mortimer. Although I am a royalist at heart, if ever there were a republic in the UK, I would vote for Alix as its first dictator.

So there!

OneHourAhead is now posting from the other side of the Atlantic instead of the other side of the North Sea so forgive me for being slightly late on the draw on any breaking news.

I will however at least have a ringside seat for one of the most exciting political races in recent history.  I am in a democratic city in a republican state in the south so things could get interesting.

Like most, I have been massively impressed with Millenium’s blogger interviews.  The chance for us hoi-polloi to go and talk face-to-face with the top people in one of the main parties in British politics is pretty cool.

However, living on the continent I am not best placed to sign up for these.  Although the next one is going to be in the great northern enclave of Sheffield (where all the best people go to university) I doubt the shores of Lake Geneva are going to be on the interviewing schedule anytime soon.  Pity.  It is very nice this time of year.  But, when there was some hoohah about these interviews a few months ago then Alex Wilcock rightly suggested ‘if you want something done, do it yourself’.  So that is what I am thinking of doing.

Via the magic-inty-web.

In a nutshell, coveritlive is a real-time chat platform.  If you want to host a chat all you have to do is go to the website and fill in the relevant information and then all you do is paste the bit of code they give you into a post on your blog.  The main plus-points for coveritlive are:

1. Fully moderated:  the ‘producer’ (in coveritlive parlance the person who’s blog it is on) has the choice whether or not to publish comments.
2. Easy for commentators: It runs through a normal blog post so individual commentators don’t have to do anything special to join in, no extra software* or registration, they should just be able to go to the particular post on the blog and can join in straight away.
3. Easy for ‘panelists’: Whoever it is you want to chat to doesn’t have to make any special arrangements either, all they need to do is find an hour or so to sit in front of a computer one evening - not necessarily easy for busy people but not impossible either.
4. Global: The guy in the next room can join in, or the girl on the other side of the world.
5. You can add lots of extra bits in: Embed the party’s videos from youtube, or links to policy documents to back up the argument you are making.  It also allows you to host quick polls to get an idea of what the commentators/readers think about particular topics.

*perhaps a flash plugin, but most people will have that kind of thing already.

If you want to see what they look like, post-interview, go either here, where Iain Dale hosted one with the Tory Chris Rennard, Eric Pickle, or go here, where Sky hosted one with the C&N candidates. Or better still, go to the coveritlive website, sign up and then play around with their practice platform.

Over on Libdemvoice at the moment there is a short discussion about whether we should always be chatting about our strategy/policy/woe in public.  Thinking about this, it would also be possible to password-protect the individual post that the chat was in, and then invite people individually to the chat and give them the password.  This might be best if it were possible to get people from the internal party machine to come and chat.  For MP’s, Lords, PPC’s etc. it might be better to leave it open so they can tell constituents or other interested bodies about it. As I said, the chat is fully moderated so trolls could be ignored.

So, I would welcome any feedback as to whether people think this might be a good idea? Or whether I should just shut my cake-hole?

After being caught drink driving with no insurance last month the magistrate has given Paul:

• A 3-month curfew order, applicable between the hours of 9pm-6am
• An electronic tag
• An 18-month supervision order, and
• A 3-year driving ban

So, early nights and a bit more exercise for ol’ Guido. Might do him some good.

(HT: Chicken Yoghurt and the Ministry)

UPDATE: Tim Ireland has a nice little update of the proceedings

Mr Paul Staines aka ‘Guido Fawkes’ of the high moral ground was caught earlier this month (I think after the ASI blogging evening as there were rumours of someone waking up as a guest of Her Majesty’s Constabulary) driving whilst twice over the drink-drive limit and with no insurance. tut tut. This apparently isn’t his first offence. For the story in the Independent go here, for schadenfreude go here, here, here or here, for no comment go here or here.

Honestly guys, get a room, a nice bottle of champagne between the three of you and snuggle up together to watch Top Gun - it would be easier on all of us. 

Firstly, I would like to point out what I think Lib Dem blogs do right:

• Local issues: I know, blah blah, localism, blah, blah but, although personally I don’t read them one of the best things about the Lib Dem blogosphere is that there are many councillors, AM’s and MP’s out there that are blogging for their constituents, not for you and me and Westminster.  This is an excellent way to get across to people. For instance, say you are a young mum or dad in central Manchester wondering about schools and centres for your kid, you hear of a possible new centre called ‘Butterstile’. You google ‘Butterstile Children’s Centre’ and the first entry is Richard Baum’s entry on the place, above the local paper link.  People click there and find out about the centre AND about Richard Baum, who they may never have heard about before, they are then introduced to Richard, the Lib Dems and the local party.  Excellent. I bet every local blog has a story like that and they all add up.
• Write well:  When I first started blogging I thought my writing was pretty good, what with my A in GCSE English and all.  Thought you’d all be falling at my feet waiting for my next morsel with which to satisfy yourselves.  Unfortunately I started blogging around about the time Alix Mortimer did. Bugger.  Next to her it just looks like I am beating my fists against the keyboard whilst drunk on envy.  Add to that a sprinkling of James, Paul, Neil, Jonny and Anders plus many more and we have ourselves a very coherent, eloquent voice out here on the interweb.  This may seem like a minor point but there is nothing that is going to turn off people like summit that ain’t write wellen like.
• Wimmin: I know there could always be more but at least there are some. We’ve got Alix, Bridget, Charlotte, Jenny, Jo, Jo, Jo, Linda, Lynne, Mary, Maureen and Meral and even a bonafide Baroness. The Tories have got Mad Nad. Nuff Said.
• Constructive criticism: We understand that those poor dittle people wearing yellowly orange in the westy minsty housey somewtimes get it an incey bit wrong. Aw, bless ‘em, look at ‘em in there nice Burton suits. We pat them on the head, point them in the right direction and let them get on with it. We don’t castigate them for not bringing back hanging or not killing all the poor. Neither do we stick our tongues right up their fundaments.
• Issues: Our blogs actually contain issues, some of the quite in depth discussions on areas of our or others policies. They are not the electronic equivalent of “You know your MP, right? He takes it right up the chutney, he does. Swear.”  The latter may get more page views but doesn’t quite move the debate on as much as the former.  Some of the blogs I generally agree with, some I don’t, but at least I/we have the chance to think about stuff whereas others are not so fortunate.
• Non-issues:  Be it James Graham’s discussions on the inner workings of the British comic market, Jenny detailing her latest hangover or Ed Fordham’s daily virtual tours around North London, we shouldn’t be afraid to, dare I say it, show our personality. Oh gosh!  I love The Wire, most comedy and stupid or profound things written down.  And, godammit, when I’m done you bastards will love them too!

So that’s all good, what about things we could do better? 

Lynne’s originally post was about whether the blogs could be used as a more pro-active, attacking campaigning device a la the Great Union of Richard.  This is a possibility but one that I think is unlikely.  In the UK, the poliblogs with larger audiences or more well-known seem to be the ones with no immediate party political affiliation, even if they do tend towards the right, libertarian edge of the spectrum.  The party political ones are not so well-read or good, maybe for the reasons highlighted in Andy Mayer’s post on the subject, essentially they are not free to do what they wanna do, to ride their machines without being hassled by the man.  It could also be that we are all such frightfully nice people that we wouldn’t dream of such nastiness.

The reason Lynne brought up this subject was due to her Twitter post receiving a lot of attention and spreading around the Lib Dem blogosphere and beyond.  I think there are three lessons from this that other MP’s et al could learn from if they want to get more representation here in electric world:

1. Be Zeitgeisty - Twitter is the new Facebook which was the new MySpace which was the new, er, tea-room.  Everybody seems to be banging on about all of a sudden.  I don’t move from my desk all day (sob sob) and hate my mobile phone so don’t subscribe to it, but with Brian now signed up it is definitely the soup de jour.  Getting to grips with these new ways of communicating could be vital.  Don’t get me wrong, I still think knocking on someone’s door and explaining why Lib Dem bin collection would be better is vital too, but for an increasing number a knock on the door from someone in a rosette is about as popular as one from a Jehovah’s Witness with an eye for your kids.
2. Be First.  Who was the second MP to have Twitter? Is there one? Do we care? No. Lynne Rules. End of story. She was there first and the rest of you can bugger off.
3. Have Friends.  I know, strange. But if you tell 10 people and they tell 10 people and so on then soon the whole world will know. The ones with computers anyhow. And if some of those friends are outside the LD blogs then real people get to find out too. Wonderous.

So my first message to the party people is if you want us to write about something, and you want others to write about us writing about something, then, well do something.

We do support you but, firstly, we are all self-serving individuals at heart and want you to do things we like and, secondly, try to actually engage with us (and lo and behold others).  These are the secrets to being written about. 

The question shouldn’t be “Are we making the most of blogging?” it should be “Are MP’s make the most of the bloggers?” or “Is the party making the most of a completely new and revolutionary way of communicating?”  The answer to both is not quite (but if I were a Tory or a Labour supporter the answer to that question would be Fuck No! Arragh, shiit!).  

The recent interviews have been a great start and if I was in the country I would have bought Millennium as many sticky buns as he wanted to be able to go along and engage. 

But there are other opportunities. 

We should look at setting up video or skype interviews, or follow Brian’s lead with the Twitter interviews. 

We should also look at how to engage other technically savvy people with the use of t’internet.  Engage the young’uns on Facebook, MySpace or Bebo.  It is not good enough to have a static webpage or profile.  You wouldn’t knock on someone’s door and then stand still and silent when they answered?  Why would you do that on the web? 

A great example of this is explained by our web pioneer Steve Webb in the video I linked to last week.

Blogs, Social networking, Youtube, Twitter, Skype, the Dynamic web are all part of the same system that can allow the party to communicate with people that it couldn’t before and are all begging to be used to suck up voters.

Do, Do, Do, Engage, Engage, Engage - that is the answer to making the most of blogging.  In My Humble Opinion.

Pootergeek and Chase me ladies, I’m in the cavalry certainly don’t need any introduction from me but both are worth a read, particularly chase me ladies, as he is obviously ever so slightly mental.

The only really political one that I have added is rhetorically speaking, who has been doing a good job recently of laying into the perennial fruitloop that is Nadine Dorries.

Two that are good for a proper laugh out loud are Mr Angry’s constant indignation over at iamlivid.com and the superb spEak You’re bRanes, where someone has helpfully distilled the comments from the BBC’s wonderful Have Your Say pages into worrying collection of rants about asylum-seekers, dole-scroungers and bringing back hanging.

I have also been reading a few public service blogs recently, ones from coppers, paramedics, nurses, doctors and the like. I would particularly recommend Random Acts of Reality, a blog from a London Ambulance Service EMT which in turn can be funny, thought-provoking and devastatingly heartrending. Also Area Trace No Search from a Met PC with tales of life on the beat.

Message ends. Additional:

The Predator Rap

Pro-life Richardson - What would the nutjobs here call themselves?

Found this - don’t let any Tories see it though as there head might explode.

Beyond that, BBC prime were recently showing all the episodes of Red Dwarf again and I was reminded why I owned them all on VHS when I was a kid, Smegging hell it was funny. Also my new favourite thing is Flight of the Conchords, with this being my fave of the fave. Can’t take Kiwis seriously anymore. Thank you, that was great.