I enjoyed being a judge so much for the ERS blog awards earlier this year I decided I might try my hand again.

This time I’m to be the token male for the inaugural Campaign for Gender Balance Blog Awards.

I’m not going to express my own views about who I think should be nominated here as it obviously would be appallingly inappropriate. What I can do however is start a meme, in time honoured blog tradition.

This meme is very simple and largely based on the nominations process. Tagged bloggers are asked to do the following:

1. Provide a link to the Gender Balance website (http://genderbalance.org.uk/pages/awards.html) and encourage as many people as possible to submit their nominations that way.
2. Suggest THREE Blogs that should be nominated for in the Best Blog by a Woman Lib Dem category, and state why.
3. Suggest THREE blog posts that should be nominated for the Best Blog Post By a Woman Lib Dem category, and state why.
4. Suggest THREE Blogs that should be nominated for in the Best Blog by a Woman Non-Lib Dem category, and state why.
5. Name THREE living women you would like to see blog, and state why. These can be women from any walk of life, not just Lib Dems (although that doesn’t mean they can’t be).
6. Tag five other bloggers you would like to do the meme.

I can do the last bit at least, and nominate:

• Lynne Featherstone (who is also a potential nominee, but don’t take this to be favouratism)
• Jonathan Calder
• Antony Hook
• Millennium Elephant (who I’m pretty sure is a boy elephant, but I’ve never asked)
• Iain Dale (just to keep things interesting)

Tag! Of course, anyone else reading this is more than welcome - in fact encouraged - to do the meme themselves.

Share This

It turns out that the Guardian didn’t jinx it for me after all. What’s more, I appear to have a web exclusive here (which is rather sad as I should be out celebrating come to think of it). So, just to let people know, I won the Best Blog Post and Best Blog at the Lib Dem Blog Awards this evening.

Ros Taylor, better known as the Guardian Backbencher and Comment is Free Honcho presented me with both awards. The other winners were: Hug a Hoodie (Best New Blog), Mary Reid (Best Blog by an Elected Representative AND Best Designed Blog) and Liberal Mafia (Best Humourous Blog). The latter failed to collect his award but sent a rather fetching horse’s head. In addition, Matt Davies got a special commendation for Best Blog by an Elected Representative while Hug a Hoodie got a special commendation for Best Blog Post.

So, thanks a lot to the judges (Will Howells, Lynne Featherstone, Stephen Tall and Ryan Cullen) and thanks a lot to every one who nominated me. Commiserations too to everyone who was nominated but didn’t win on this occasion (I hope they’ll forgive me if rather than listing them all I just link to the list of nominations).

I’d like to say I’m above such petty baubles, but in reality I’m deeply shallow.

Share This