Pressing "play"...

You probably needed the break as much as I did;)

You'll notice the appearance of the blog has been tidied up a bit with new links planted, old defunct ones weeded out. Tying in with what this year's Total Politics book said, there was quite an astonishing 50% in the last category. So generally in the UK's political blogosphere things are quietening down, perhaps consolidating around the biggies (Dale, Fawkes, Conservative Home and the rising Labour/left wing stars).

For differing reasons, however, Plaid Cymru and SNP still are maintaining very much a majority presence online in Wales and Scotland. In Northern Ireland there is still a reasonably vibrant Unionist subsphere consisting of a dozen or so sites posting fairly regularly. It exists despite (or, thinking about it, probably because) of our own biggie, Slugger O'Toole's dominance locally. How much influence though have we had collectively over the parties, never mind policies? The fact my most popular post in terms of page-views remains the "Dublin Rangers Supporters club" (see bottom right hand corner of the site) probably gives you an accurate answer to that question...