Your chance to nominate and vote

With the end of the holiday season and the September party conferences a new political year is about to start. But before the old one, 2006/07 finally closes I thought that it would be a good moment to celebrate those who have enriched our discussions, and in some cases helped us make winning bets, through their contributions to the site’s discussion threads during the past year.

Who, for you, has been the Poster of the Year? Who has consistently provided insights and contributed to our understanding of complex events and has added most to our discussions?

Politicalbetting would not be the site it is but for the thousands and thousands of comments that are posted here each week. Each day, I’ve worked out, there’s something like 30,000 words all of which has made this the site to understand what is happening not just in UK politics but overseas as well.

In the past twelve months we’ve had the dramatic US mid-term elections where against all the odds the Democrats won both houses. We’ve seen the fight for the French Presidency and we have been looking forward to next year’s White House race.

In the UK there’s been the dramatic ousting of Tony Blair and the whole Labour transition, the deputy leadership contest, the big changes in local councils in England and elections for the Cardiff and Edinburgh governments. And of course we had the July by elections.

There will be five categories:-
Politicalbetting.com Conservative Poster of the Year – for the Tory who has who has made the best contribution.
Politicalbetting.com Labour Poster of the Year – for the Labour poster who has who has made the best contribution.
Politicalbetting.com Lib Dem Poster of the Year – for the Lib Dem who has who has made the best contribution.
Politicalbetting.com Specialist Poster of the Year – for the person who has brought special knowledge to a particular area or activity.
Politicalbetting.com Poster of the Year – for the person who, overall, has made the most significant contributions during the period.

How the elections will work. Please record your nominations setting out your reasons on this thread. You can nominate more than one person in each section but please give reasons. This will form the basis of the short-lists that I will draw up.

Nominations will close at 8pm on Thursday and anonymous online voting will start on Friday morning. Voting will continue over the weekend. The winners will be announced next Monday

UPDATE NOTE The competition categories have been changed since this was published an hour ago.

On holiday from this weekend. I will be away from this Friday through to Monday September 17th enjoying the delights of the Basque country with my wife, Jacky. During that period Paul Maggs will be standing in as guest editor. Paul has played a key part on the site running our competitions and I am grateful that, once again, he has offered to take on the role to give me a break. If you have ideas for guest articles then please could you contact Paul ASAP here.

Mike Smithson