The Telegraph, with Iain Dale, has for a number of years published a list of leaders of The Right - each year to coincide with the annual Tory Party Conference. It's always a fascinating list that attracts enormous attention. One of the few weaknesses of the list, however, is that it excludes journalists. I presume because The Telegraph (understandably) wouldn't want, say, the Editor of The Daily Mail to appear higher on the list than its own Editor.
Another weakness of the Telegraph list is that it is decided behind closed doors by the great and the good. As great and as good as they are we'd like to begin a process whereby ConservativeHome readers first nominate people for a list of influential Right-wingers (I conceded the problems with that term yesterday) and then rank those nominations by online vote. We'll publish this list in a special newspaper that we'll distribute at the Tory conference in Birmingham.
Beginning today let's have your nominations for influential journalists on the Right.
I'm looking for Political reporters like the Sun's Political Editor Tom Newton-Dunn...
Political columnists like Daniel Finkelstein...
...and Editors like Tony Gallagher.
And the key test, please, is influence rather than whether you like the person's writing.
10.45am: Rather than listing names the most persuasive comments are those that give a quick reason for the nomination.
