This will be a blogging election: bloggers, already a political and media force in the US, will have real visibility in the UK for the first time. Will that be a good thing? Yes - if you think politics should be even more personal than they already are. Blogging is a child of the confessional age: that time which has brought Big Brother, Jerry Springer and I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here.

Stephen Coleman, professor of internet studies at the Oxford Internet Institute and the country's expert on blogospheric intercourse, thinks bloggers will flourish and will be of three kinds: one, political wonks whose pitch will be that "you can't trust anybody, except me"; two, candidates and their aides who do blogs to show they are in touch with the emotions of ordinary people and find the fuss and flummery of politics as tedious as the next voter; and three, journalists or would-be journalists who write what they can't in reports or columns, or do not have reports and columns in which to say anything.