Bristol West MP Stephen Williams wins national Lib Dem blogging award

Bristol West MP Stephen Williams, whose constituency includes Redland, has won an award for his blogging efforts.

Mr Williams was presented with the award for 'best blog 2011' at the Liberal Democrats conference in Birmingham earlier this week (an impressive achievement considering he's only been writing it for one month according to his website!). 

He's actually been penning pieces on the blog for just over a year now and in recent months has joined, but not fully embraced, Twitter as well as signing up here on Redland People.

Mr Williams, who lives in Bristol (brownie points there!), says he started the blog as a way of keeping constituents informed about his work in Bristol and Westminster - as well as giving his take on local, national, and international events.

The first few entries are on wide ranging topics, including the formulation of the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition, Gay Pride and A-Level results. He's gone on to write about things such as voting reform, Palestine and homelessness. His most recent post, penned on September 16, is a response to the Welsh mining tragedy.

Well done Mr Williams for taking these simple steps to keep your constituents informed and try and engage younger voters, more MPs should take note. However, one danger of blogs is leaving them without fresh posts. For example some months have just one lone post - that can't be indicative of what he's been up to in Westminster and beyond.

But it's not just Mr Williams who has an informative blog here in Redland, Councillor Neil Harrison (Cotham Lib Dem) has been penning updates on his for years now. The blog, which he started in May 2008 - a year after he was elected to represent Cotham Ward, has numerous posts about local issues.

Speaking when he was up for a Lib Dem blog award a few years ago, he said: "I try to use the blog to catalogue work that I am engaged with in Cotham, as well as commenting on some of the political issues of the time in Bristol and further afield. I've had lots of positive feedback from residents who use it to keep in touch with what's happening locally."

"I initially wasn't sure whether blogging was a waste of time, but it doesn't take very much effort and I've now set it up so that I can even post articles by e-mail from my phone. Unlike some bloggers, I don't spend large amounts of time looking at other people's blogs - I just focus on sharing information and letting people have an insight into my thinking on issues."

You can read Cllr Harrison's blog HERE. You can read Mr Williams' blog HERE.