My nomination – Paul Linford

From the moment that West Bromwich MP, the unlovely Tom Watson, visited Gordon, Sarah and family at their Fife home during the first week of September the 2006/07 political year has been dominated by one subject – the Labour succession.

For from that meeting Watson went on to resign his ministerial position apparently threatening a whole wave unless Tony stood down. It was unsubtle, it was brutal but it was highly effective.

We then went onto to all the machinations as one contender after another was proposed as somebody who could challenge Gordon. As a side show we had the deputy leadership race and then Gord’s team managed to block any challenge for the big job. Since taking over on June 27th he has had a dream start and now all the pressure in on Cameron.

The blogger who has provided more insightful analysis during this period has been Paul Linford – who topped it all to seal my nomination with a series of throughly enjoyable posts during July on Alastair Campbell’s memoirs. It has become a must read. If you haven’t seen them it is well worth going through his archives.

Paul does not post everyday and does not stick to politics which is no bad thing. What he has done has been to maintain an enormous consistency of high quality posting which has put his site at the top of my daily “must see” list.

For me the key elements of a good blog are that it should provide new information or insights on political events that are not available elsewhere. I’m not really interested in opinions unless there is an originality which makes you look at things differently.

Iain Dale is re-doing his political blog of the year and is asking for submissions by August 15th. A book is due out in September. To put forward your list with a maximum of 1 – 20 click here.

Mike Smithson