I gave this speech when presenting the first Lib Dem blog of the year award.

I blog therefore I am!

I exist for great swathes of people because I blog and I blog to exist (and keep existing) as a politician.

I am trying, in an era when so few people vote and so many people dismiss politicians as being all the same – to demonstrate that I am me, to let all those who read it get to know me as a person, and to do so in a medium which (sometimes!) reaches the parts conventional politics often doesn’t.

When I started my blog – nearly three years ago – I had no idea what I was letting myself in for.

But to write a blog and keep it up over the weeks and years you have to love writing. And I love writing. Politics is so busy, so out there, so frenetic – so blogging is my space for thought and sorting out what I think.

My blog is a personal record of my work in my own words: no middlemen, no media interpretation, just my view of issues and events and activities – with the ability to explain points of view at much greater length than you get in the nanosecond TV soundbite culture. It enables me to get at and be got at by my constituents, the media, local party activists, members of the party, the wider party and my opponents.

And of course – there are pros and cons. The pros are as I have described but there are cons. I’ve been asked nicely, and not so nicely, to remove bits; I have had bits quoted out of context to whip up anger; I’ve had a virtual stalker and of course my political opponents search every word for their own ends.

And it can get difficult – when your party is going through convulsions and you would rather not be accessible or saying anything – you have to be true to the blog. You can’t pick and choose and ignore the embarrassing or the challenging.

I’m not talking about personal matters – but when there is a political issue of the day – such as when Charles’s drinking and the consequent leadership contest was happening – I had to say something. I had to keep it real – or what would be the point of a blog.

Through good times and bad in fact you have to keep writing. In bad time it can be good though to have to keep writing – as with earlier this year when I was one of the signatories on that final letter to Charles Kennedy – and with so much misunderstanding amongst the wider party and general public – I was able to write and explain, not in a sound bite compressed way, what I was doing and why. Fully and in my own words. It was invaluable in dealing with what was a genuine, albeit brief, schism whilst the wider world came to understand the seriousness of the situation we as a party were facing.

You have to keep it real. I read David Miliband’s blog last week – not a dickie bird about Blair / Brown. With all hell breaking loose in the Labour party -you can’t go coy when the going gets tough. Miliband by name Milibland by nature.

And blogging itself is now a major force on the political scene. Blogs now sometimes lead the news as happened with part of the Prescott story.

But how will blogging develop? Where can it go from here? What advantage do I get from blogging and how can I keep ahead of the game. And how can the party use this tool. So much territory to cover and so much to look forward to.

I am just thrilled to see how from little bloggie acorns has grown a veritable army of LibDem bloggers.

Whilst Labour fear blogging and do not wish their MPs etc to blog – clearly for a controlling party blogging would send them into a nervous breakdown. But for us – there is no central control whatsoever. It is still a fledgling tool – but one which can influence the debate beyond its actuality.

As more and more bloggers, Lib Dem or others join our merry band – it will become more challenging to be distinct or win awards or attract people to one’s blog – but in the end – that is one of the real beauties of blogging – the audience is and audience of interest – and that can be whoever you choose.

And I was spoilt for choice in the judging of these awards. There is a wide range of approach – but what is clear – there is real talent out there.

Note: the winner was Stephen Tall.