This strange and eventful summer has prompted a minor revolution in the political blogosphere. The Toryblog, a species that used to be the preserve of a few rightwing columnists and the odd youth, has bloomed and flourished in the febrile climate of the Conservative leadership contest. Now that the European constitution has been thrown out and neoconservatism has gone out of fashion, Torybloggers are thriving. They have plenty to feed on.
Some, like David Davis for Leader, devote themselves to furthering the cause of their hero. Others are piling in to rubbish Ken Clarke. Others are lobbying against the proposed rules giving Tory MPs the final say on a new leader. Conservative Home, which champions a deeply moral strand of Conservatism, is always worth reading on Fridays for its penetrating "good week, bad week" roundup of the contenders' progress.
Boris Johnson, of course, has had his own blog for quite a while, and if his lucrative media activities left him any time to post there, it would probably be rather good.
Neither Stumbling and Mumbling nor Samizdata are really Toryblogs - the latter takes a libertarian stance with an element of "recovering" neocon thinking - but both are lively and provocative reads. S&M is particularly strong on economics, and both are indignant about Gordon Brown's tax regime.
Psephologists should head to Polling Report and the reliably incisive PoliticalBetting.com for odds on the various runners. None of the runners has established their own blog yet, though Ken Clarke has had a website built for him. Shame.
