Blog award from Total Politics

It's quite something for a blog to receive an award voted for by readers of Total Politics magazine and Iain Dale's Diary, and I'd like to thank everyone who helped to get me to 56th in the top 75 Lib Dem blogs.

However, I do admit to being very surprised and more than a little embarrassed to see it appearing anywhere at all in the Lib-Dem list, because it's (correctly) not included in the Total Politics list of Lib Dem blogs, but is (also correctly) included in their list of 'non-aligned' blogs.

I can only assume that the votes must have come from people old enough to remember the days when I was involved as a speech advisor/writer/coach to former Lib Dem leader Paddy Ashdown - and who think (incorrectly) that I carried on in a similar capacity with all the leaders since then.

For the record, none of his successors as leader of the party has thought that they needed any help from me. But, as this blog does indeed do its best to be 'non-aligned' (most of the time), I couldn't possibly comment on whether or not I think Messrs Kennedy, Campbell and Clegg have been correct in their judgement on this particular matter.