A quick reminder that nominations for the Liberal Democrat Blog of the Year Awards, to be awarded at party conference in a couple of weeks, close at midnight tonight.

Details of the categories and how to nominate your favourite blogs are on Liberal Democrat Voice. If you need some inspiration for the Best Posting category, many LibDem bloggers have highlighted their own best bits.

A quick plug for the Liberal Democrat Blog of the Year Awards, which will be handed out at our party conference in September, and which this year include a new category for non-Lib Dems, “Best non-Liberal Democrat politics blog”, which will be voted on by readers of Liberal Democrat Voice.

Nominations need be emailed to ecampaignteam@libdems.org.uk by the end of August. See my posting on Lib Dem Voice for more info, including the list of categories.

So David Davis, in wasting thousands of pounds of taxpayers money in a farce of a by-election, has answered my question. Sadly, his answer is exceedingly pedestrian. It’s revealed in the Treasury press release that announced his appointment to the Chiltern Hundreds:

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has today appointed the Right Honourable David Michael Davis to be Steward and Bailiff of the Three Hundreds of Chiltern. The Chancellor has also granted Mr Davis’s request to be released from this appointment today.

For the first time in many years, no-one is Stewarding or, er, Bailiffing the hundreds of Stoke, Desborough, and Burnham. Let’s hope they don’t get away.

The Tories’ Henley by-election candidate, John Howell, has been caught with briefing notes apparently aimed to help him appear “normal”, with information about the cost of basic produce in the supermarket – a revelation surely more damaging than just admitting you don’t know.

It’s an amusing insight into the Conservative campaign, but its exposure by the Liberal Democrats reminds me of one of the most memorable incidents in the 2006 midterms, when soon to be ousted Virginia Senator George Allen was caught using the slur “macaca” against an opposition activist.

What made a big difference to the impact of Allen’s comment – and the ability to prove what he’d said – was that the incident was caught on video. It suggested a new type of campaigning, where activists follow their opponents around hoping to catch a similar error.

This step change hasn’t happened – and with limited resources, campaigns sensibly use these on methods with clear benefits, rather than risking waiting for a slip-up that never comes. In the case of the John Howell incident, it looks like the photographer was in the right place at the right time. But the thousand words of a photograph are far more effective than a verbal claim about what was spotted. It should serve as a reminder to politicians that modern – and not so modern – technology can catch even the smallest revealing mistake in amber.