LDV Meme - Favourite blog posts

I realise I am a bit late to the party but I have been on holiday so have only just had the chance to do a post in response to last weekend's Lib Dem Voice meme regarding the blog posts from our own site that we wish to self nominate for the imminent Lib Dem BOTY awards.

So here are a few plucked from my blog:

Democracy Diner: I did this satirical sketch last month imagining what it would be like if restaurants treated its customers in the same way as the electoral system treats its voters. It was fairly well received.

If Jeni Barnett's MMR show is within Ofcom rules then the rules are broken: I feel very strongly about evidence based medicine and in this post from June I questioned whether Jeni Barnett's disgraceful LBC show on the subject of MMR from January should have been deemed to be within Ofcom rules.

"Commentariat vs Bloggertariat" event review - #eiblogger: This was a review of the #eiblogger event that Editorial Intelligence kindly invited me to in June and which I posted the next day. It was well received and was reposted on the Wardman Wire. I also posted a follow-up where I listed what myself and other bloggers considered to be "Classic blog posts" in response to Martin Bright's assertion during the event that he had never come across one: Classic blog posts for Martin Bright of The Spectator

How STV would re-enfranchise voters: One of a number of posts I have done about the benefits of STV. In this one which was a direct response to a Tory in Manchester who I had been debating with on Twitter the night before, I highlight how STV could actually be beneficial to someone of his political persuasion in his geographical area.

Cameron will say anything to avoid electoral reform: A response to a piece David Cameron wrote for the Evening Standard where he mustered all the canards he could find against electoral reform. I attempted to rebut them all and this post was well received and linked to.

Fascinating research into public perception of the drugs issue: A post from last month where I highlighted some interesting findings from research done in New England a few years ago about people's attitude to legalising cannabis for medical use. It turns out that although a majority are in favour of it, they erroneously think they are in a minority!

I attended Andrew MacKay's meeting and I think his position is now untenable: On 22nd May this year I attended a meeting called by my local MP Andrew MacKay where he attempted to explain his behaviour regarding him and his wife (fellow Tory MP Julie Kirkbride) claiming two second home allowances between them. The meeting went very badly for Mr MacKay and the next day despite what he had said to the media straight after the meeting he announced he was stepping down. My post includes a synopsis of the meeting from contemporaneous notes I made during it. This is my second most successful blog post ever with over 5,000 page views.

MPs Expenses and safe seats correlation - update: This is my most read blog post ever with over 6,000 page views and was linked to by Polly Toynbee in the Guardian as well as lots of bloggers both inside and outside the Lib Dems. It was a follow up to my post Has our electoral system contributed to the MPs expenses scandal? It explores the apparent correlation I discovered between the likelihood of an MP having been involved in the expenses scandal and the safety of their seat. Thse two posts led to me being invited onto Radio 4's "More or Less" programme to discuss the working behind my findings and the idea that our First Past the Post electoral system that allows these safe seats is at least partly to blame for the scandal has now seeped into the national political consciousness in a way that I still find amazing. I have heard senior politicians including cabinet members referring to the apparent link in arguments for electoral reform which as a keen reformer myself I find most gratifying.