8th September 2009

Philip Booth, a Stroud District councillor for Randwick, Whiteshill and Ruscombe, has been listed in ninth place in the Green blogs section of the annual national poll by Total Politics magazine. This is up from sixteenth place last year.

The blog, "Ruscombe Green", has around 3,000 unique visitors a month. Philip Booth has averaged nearly 12 blogs a week with around 2,000 blog entries since he started writing comments about local news, actions, meetings and campaigns since he was elected in May 2006.

Philip Booth said: "The poll is a bit of fun, but it is nice to know people have been interested in the blog and a Green take on the world. I started the blog when I was elected as a local Green councillor in May 2006 as there was not a regular news sheet that covered the ward. It's nowhere near perfect English as it's often written late at night or early in the morning but it does give a flavour of what I'm doing as a local councillor. The blog isn't about rivalling local newspapers, but more a chance to go into depth with green stuff, debate and campaigns and look at local issues."

Philip Booth added: "Local politics is not all frustration, planning issues and 'dog poo', it can also have many opportunities to help improve our local communities. I try and share some of these and let people know some of what I am doing on a day-to-day basis. Indeed I get emails regularly resulting from items I've covered on the blog."

The Ruscombe Green blog covers a huge range of local, national and international issues and campaigns plus has numerous photos and even cartoons created specially by local cartoonist, Russ.

Meanwhile another South West blogger Richard Lawson in North Somerset came in at eleventh place. Richard Lawson said: "The Mabinogogiblog, named after the Welsh folktales, has been going for five years, and is getting 2000 hits a month lately.  It is a sort of personal pressure valve, expressing all the pent-up political frustrations and reasonings that might otherwise cause me to go off the rails and watch day-time TV or start drinking whiskey at 10a.m. It covers some 50 topics, with the most numerous being politics, economics and the financial crash (I get loads of hits on my piece about the Ponzi scheme). I also do poetry, philosophy, humour and satire. Before visiting the site, be warned that it contains traces of irony, and that you stand a 10% chance of wasting an hour or more browsing on the Mabinogogiblog".

See the blogs at: http://ruscombegreen.blogspot.com/

http://greenerblog.blogspot.com/

This list is the result of more than 1,500 people who voted in the Total Politics Annual Blog Poll during the second half of July from a list of 110 registered Green blogs. Top 25 Green blogs can be found at:
http://www.totalpolitics.com/blogs/index.php/2009/08/21/top-25-green-blogs