Nominations closed on Friday for the Liberal Democrats’ annual Blog of the Year Awards which we’re running in conjunction with Liberal Democrat Voice.

The judges – myself from Cowley Street, blogging MP Lynne Featherstone, LibDem Blogs mastermind Ryan Cullen and last year’s winner and Liberal Democrat Voice commissioning editor Stephen Tall – have drawn up our shortlists. With the sheer number of Liberal Democrat blogs (there are now 133 on LibDem Blogs alone), six categories and lots of nominations, and with such a high standard of entries, it was quite a task. In some cases we were sorely tempted to lengthen the shortlists, but instead we ruthlessly cut some excellent blogs in order to whittle the nominations down to just five.

For the Best Designed Blog category, we’d like you – readers of Liberal Democrat Voice – to choose the winner. There is now a poll on the sidebar where you can cast your vote. The poll will close at 4pm on the 16th, so there’s plenty of time to take part. The winner will be announced along with the winners of the other five categories at party conference. The Blog of the Year Awards ceremony is being held in the Holiday Inn Restaurant in Brighton from 9pm on Sunday 16th September (do come along if you’re at conference), and will appear here shortly afterwards.

The finalists comprise some of the best of Liberal Democrat blogging and are a great place to start if you’re not yet a regular reader of LibDem blogs. Here, then, by category, are the shortlists.

Best new Liberal Democrat blog

• Clowns to the Left of Me (Bernard Woolley)
• Duncan Borrowman
• Hug a Hoodie (Jonny Wright)
• Jonathan Fryer
• The Diary of Chris K (Chris Keating)

Best blog from a Liberal Democrat elected to public office

• Adrian Sanders MP
• Mary Reid
• Matt Davies
• Peter Black AM
• Rick’s St Mary’s Diary/Richard Baum

Most humorous Liberal Democrat blog

• Hot Ginger and Dynamite (Paul Evans)
• Liberal Mafia (Don Liberali)
• Niles’s Blog (Alex Foster)
• The Very Fluffy Diary of Millennium Dome, Elephant (Millennium Elephant)
• The Whiskey Priest (Gavin Whenman)

Best designed Liberal Democrat blog (winner to be chosen by readers of Liberal Democrat Voice)

• A posh sounding Northumbrian (Rob Fenwick)
• Hug a Hoodie (Jonny Wright)
• Jock’s Place (Jock Coats)
• Mary Reid
• Quaequam Blog (James Graham)

Best posting on a Liberal Democrat blog

• A message to the Conservative Party – loss, desolation and redemption: how divorce impacts on lives (Mark Valladares)
• David Cameron on Today: How I Long For Yesterday (Alex Wilcock)
• Frances Lawrence and Learco Chindamo – whose rights? (Jonny Wright)
• Simon Jenkins: how many points can one person miss? (James Graham)
• [Untitled – Sunday, 29 April 2007] (Suzanne Fletcher)

Liberal Democrat Blog of the Year

• Liberal Burblings (Paul Walter)
• Liberal England (Jonathan Calder)
• Love and Liberty (Alex Wilcock)
• Quaequam Blog (James Graham)
• The Very Fluffy Diary of Millennium Dome, Elephant (Millennium Elephant)

Congratulations and good luck to all of the shortlisted bloggers.