WELL-KNOWN IRISH FIGURES feature highly among the roster of bloggers offering contributions to the British version of curated news website The Huffington Post, which launched this morning.

Economist David McWilliams, gardener Diarmuid Gavin and chef Conrad Gallagher are among those lined up to contribute to the website, the British offshoot of Arianna Huffington’s popular US offering.

Other figures named by the site as future bloggers include Bell X1 singer Paul Noonan, TV3′s Elaine Crowley and comedians Paddy Courtney and Carol Tobin.

Former prime minister Tony Blair his spin doctor Alistair Campbell are among the British political contributors, as is Sarah Brown, the wife of Blair’s successor Gordon Brown.

Its political contributors are not solely from the Labour ranks; others include the Olympics minister Jeremy Hunt and former Liberal Democrat press officer Louise Phillips are also featured on the site.

Blair has yet to publish a piece on the website, but the Daily Telegraph noted that he had been named as a prospective writer.

Other opening-day contributors include comedian Ricky Gervais, media analyst Roy Greenslade and the USA’s British ambassador Louis Susman.

The website is heavily modelled on and influenced by its US parent, which was taken over by AOL in February in a deal worth $315m – but whether its US legal challenge, from bloggers seeking $105m in payment for their free work, will also translate remains to be seen.

In her opening contribution to the site, Huffington said she hoped the site could replicate its US formula of marrying traditional journalistic skills and ethics with interactivity and conversation.

The UK edition of the site opens with a full-time complement of ten staff.