Puffbox

It’s really quite sad to note the imminent demise of Lib Dem Voice, which had established itself as the main LibDem blog – part of a very healthy political triumvirate with ConservativeHome and LabourHome. Host Rob Fenwick writes… ‘I’m unable to continue for various reasons – not least of which the amount of time running a site of this nature takes up.’

Perhaps more interesting is the follow-up commentary from Tory candidate Iain Dale: ‘it just shows that it’s impossible to make it work unless, like Tim Montgomerie on ConservativeHome, you can devote yourself to it full time. I don’t think Tim would disagree that in the six months he was working at 18 Doughty Street ConservativeHome suffered a little and that since he and Sam Coates have gone back to it more or less full time it has gone up another level. In my own case, this blog only took off in the first half of 2006 because I had taken a six month sabbatical from work and was able to devote the hours necessary to develop it.’

Does it take two people’s full-time attention to make a serious splash with your political blog? Apparently so.