Congratulations to my colleague Andrew Sparrow, who has been shortlisted for this year's Orwell prize for blogs. He is one of just six bloggers selected from 83 entries who stands a chance of winning the £3,000 prize.
The others are Alix Mortimer for The People's Republic of Mortimer, Chekov for Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness, Iain Dale for Iain Dale's Diary, Jack Night for Night Jack and Newsnight's Paul Mason for Idle Scrawl.
Jean Seaton, the director of the prize, says of the blog shortlist:
When we announced we were running a blog prize this year, many people reached for the Sir Humphrey Appleby dictionary and praised us for being "courageous".
But judging the blogs showed how interesting and difficult it is to choose between them – with such a range of views, styles and experiences it is sometimes tricky to define what makes a great blog. But the blogs on our shortlist are great, and the blogosphere is only going to become more important in our political life.
The winner will be announced on 22 April.
