Top of the Blogs: the Golden Dozen #14

Welcome to the 14th of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (20th-26th May), together with a hand-picked quintet you might otherwise have missed.

(And my thanks, parenthetically, to my LDV and Oxford city council colleague, Richard Huzzey, for holding the fort last week with his customary aplomb.)

So, here we go on another roller-coaster ride:

1. ‘Checking out the local election results’ on Pink Dog’s blog
The usual in-depth analysis from the Lib Dems’ colourful canine psephologist.

2. ‘Liberal Democrats win Dudden Hill by-election’ by ~~Pink Dog~~ Mark Pack on Lib Dem Voice.
Congratulating Pawan Gupta on a terrific victory in Brent.

3. ‘Twisting in the Welsh wind’ by James Graham on his Quaequam Blog! blog.
A trenchantly reasoned critique of the Welsh Lib Dem leadership during the Assembly negotiations.

4. ‘On Liberty, Online: FOI debacle: holding Stephen Hammond MP to account’ on Joe Taylor’s On Liberty, Online blog.
An open letter to a Tory MP attempting to wriggle out of his party’s complicity in attempting to undermine the Freedom of Information Action. (See also 10., below.)

5. ‘Wales’ on Peter Pigeon’s Pigeon Post blog.
Unconvinced by Alex Carlile’s attributed argument that the Lib Dems should guarantee support for the largest single party.

6. ‘Internal Conservative memo identifies LibDems as biggest threat to Tory Victory’ on Paul Walter’s Liberal Burblings blog.
“Tory voters are much more positive about the Conservatives than the party’s activists,” notes the memo as highlighted – some might say ironically – on the Cameron-sceptic Conservative Home.

7. ‘Lessons in liberalism (courtesy The West Wing)’ on (ahem) Stephen Tall’s A Liberal Goes A Long Way blog.
Two fine clips displaying the brilliance of Aaron Sorkin’s creation: politics and campaigning discussed with wit and intelligence.

And another five you may not yet have read:

8. ‘Why do the poor pay so much tax?’ by Rob Knight on Liberal Review’s Apollo Blog.
Asks a question Gordon Brown prefers to ignore – why do the poor pay a higher proportion of their income in tax than the richest under a Labour government?

9. ‘Religion and Politics: Tension or Tolerance?’ on Jonathan Fryer’s blog.
Yes to ‘live and let live’, and disestablishment of the CofE – views from a Hackney ward Pizza and Politics discussion.

10. ‘Writing to a random peer’ on Lynne Featherstone MP’s Parliament and Haringey Diary blog.
The next step in the Lib Dems’ fight to stop the Labour/Tory alliance in the House of Commons from restricting the public’s freedom of information.

11. ‘Is John Humphrys a sleeper for Cameron?’ on Jeremy Hargreaves’ blog.
Harumphing at Humphreys: “is there no end to the arrogance of this man?”

12. ‘Who is the true son of the manse’ on Nick Barlow’s What You Can Get Away With blog.
What Gordon Brown and David Tennant have in common with each other (and me, come to that).

And that’s it for another seven days…

* Stephen Tall blogs at A Liberal Goes A Long Way.

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