Iain Dale’s doing his annual best blog competition, so here are my top ten political blogs which I’m sending in.

First there are the regular ‘must reads’:

1. Liberal Democrat Voice
2. Iain Dale
3. Guido Fawkes (Love Iain and Guido, or hate them, or love and hate them both – they are a pretty much essential read, frequently breaking stories that are then ones we all pay attention to.)
4. Liberal Conspiracy (The content isn’t as much of a ‘must read’ for me as the previous three, but Liberal Conspiracy has the best discussion in the comments. It’s the place where pieces from myself generate the most interesting discussion compared with the other sites where my words sometimes appear.)

(And yes – no Labour equivalent there. The Labour ‘home’ style sites aren’t quite there yet – at least for an outside like myself.)

And for the other six:

5. Labour MP Tom Harris (Frequently disagree with him – but a great blogging style and manages to be interesting and thought provoking despite also being a pretty much always on message Labour minister. Not an easy combination to pull off!)

6. James Graham’s Quaequam (A previous Liberal Democrat Voice ‘Blog of the Year’ winner and one of the best pugnacious bloggers around – showing how you can be very robust in your arguments without simply lapsing into empty insults.)

7. The Times’s Red Box (I feel it’s a bit of a cheat to include a blog that is really a newspaper online, but this is an excellent example of this genre at work.)

8. Dave Hill (Really came to prominence for many people during the London elections this year – and continues to shed light on what is happening in London government.)

9. Helen Duffett (Helen’s worked in my office helping with casework. I’ll let you judge whether that means her excellent blogging is because of or despite this link!)

10. And of course, the best blogging pink dog in the world, Pink Dog (Where else would I find out about spoon crime?)

You can cast your own votes too by sending your top ten to toptenblogs@totalpolitics.com Modesty forbids me to include my own blog in my top ten, but don’t let that put you off voting for me!