The main beauty of the beauty contest blog rankings is that most bloggers that are involved in them say on the outside that ‘they’re just a bit of fun’ but on the inside they’re boring their eyes into you thinking ‘Vote for me! Vote for me!!’. So, as much as my co-editors will tut, sigh and think a whole lot less of me for this, and now that the Total Politics Blog ranking 2011 voting lines are open, let me just beg of you this, it’s only a bit of fun vote for us!

As electoral tactics go, pleading to lend us your votes simply because we put in a good bit of blood, sweat and tears to keep this blog going, kept the energy up during a lacklustre election campaign and provided a new resource for #sp11 election results (oooh, shiny!), is probably not enough so let me try this instead….. Tom Harris cannot win Scotland’s top blog award for the umpteenth year in a row. End of.

Seriously, this is the West Lothian question turned on its head that we’re dealing with here. Tom’s multi-award winning, platinum ‘And Another Thing’ blog scooped the prize in recent years on the back of predominantly English readers (as Tom, being an MP working in London, understandably tends to stay away from devolved issues). This may be less of an issue now that it is Labour Hame that is in the running, a distinctly Scottish beast, but how would you feel if Mr H was top of the charts once again?

Now, don’t get me wrong, this poll is deeply flawed, it’s even worse than the d’hondt system. What is to stop anyone from creating numerous email addresses and sending in their votes collecting 10points per email? Nothing but the belief in the common decency of our fellow man (and the last few days alone has put paid to that). However, this is the only show in town. Wikio is flawed due to its unfair reward of the group of blogs known affectionately as ‘circle jerk’ (or Lib Dem blogs if you really want to be specific about it) and there is nothing that is going to stop Total Politics from hosting this exercise every year (as I would prefer, at least until they have a decent system in place). So, if there are to be rankings, all blogs might as well get involved, all bloggers might as well aim to be as high as they fairly can and all Scots should be crossing their fingers that MacBloggers are well represented, not to mention that Scotland has a new champion in a few weeks’ time.

There are several Scottish blogs that could topple the lovable rogue from Glasgow South and I like to think that this here is one of them. So, if you don’t do it for you, for us, for your nation or for democratic duty itself, at least do it for whatever satisfaction the sight of Mr Harris slipping down the rankings will provide.

NB – The rules have changed in that you must complete this survey in order to vote.

(Tom, if you’re reading this, don’t be put off; please also vote for us!)