Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 172nd weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere … Featuring the seven most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (30th May – 5th June, 2010), together with a hand-picked quintet, normally courtesy of LibDig, you might otherwise have missed.

Don’t forget: you can sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox – just click here – ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging.

As ever, let’s start with the most popular post, and work our way down:

1. Did a moment of hubris lead to David Laws’ downfall? on Paul Walter’s Liberal Burblings.
Did Labour’s Liam ‘Slash and’ Byrne help load the gun?

2. The Telegraph’s Motives by Greg Foster on Aberystweth University Liberal Democrats.
‘The Telegraph want the coalition to collapse, or at least the Lib Dems to be sidelined. It is in my mind the only logical conclusion, they need the Lib Dems so badly discredited that the Tories are able to push us to one side and move towards an agenda they can prefer.’

3. Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones: victim or player of the race card? on James Graham’s Quaequam Blog!
Chippenham’s losing Tory candidate tries to explain his defeat to the Lib Dems’ Duncan Hames.

4. More in Anger than in Sorrow on James Oates’s Cicero’s Songs.
‘Britain deserves better leaders: leaders with the quality of David Laws- but no one will put themselves forward in the future when any tiny mistake can become such a cause celebre’.

5. David Laws and the Unkindness of (some) Gays on Andy Hinton’s Wouldn’t It Be Scarier?
‘Several people who ought to know better have been snarky and unsupportive of Laws, on the basis, so far as I can tell, that if they managed to come out surely everyone else ought to have managed it.’

6. Memo to David Laws: it’s not the 1950s on Jon Reed’s blog.
‘Coming out of the closet no longer means coming out of the Cabinet. Unless your closet was bought on expenses,’ argues Jon.

7. Why do highly intelligent people do such stupid things? on Paul Walter’s Liberal Burblings.
Alas … ‘all the degrees, money and position in the world don’t innoculate us humble humans from stupidity.’

And now to the five blog-posts that come highly recommended, regardless of the number of Aggregator click-throughs they attracted. These are chosen using the LibDig bookmarking website for party members, the site where you can highlight blog-posts you want to share with your fellow Lib Dems. Remember, though, you’re still more than welcome to nominate for the Golden Dozen a Lib Dem blog article published in the past seven days – your own, or someone else’s – using the steam-powered method of e-mail … all you have to do is drop a line to [email protected].

8. Every one of them is someone’s daughter on Sara Bedford’s Always win when you’re singing.
“Sara explains that every woman who works in the sex industry is someone’s daughter and looks at their lives, options and choices.” (Submitted by caron via LibDig).

9. Cameron’s first PMQs as PM – Review on Mark Thompson’s Mark Reckons.
‘David Cameron did pretty well at PMQs today,’ reckons Mark.

10. Lynne Featherstone and Page 3, just ask by dazmando on the Bracknell Blog.
No, she doesn’t want to ban The Sun’s stunnas. Just point out to them things have moved on.

11. Money, sex and power on Lorna Spenceley’s blog.
“Lorna Spenceley Fisks the arguments of the Telegraph and David Laws’ critics. As she points out, ‘it’s a strange sort of ‘ripping off’ that results in the perpetrator claiming less money than he was entitled to claim quite legitimately and above board.'” (Submitted by Niklas Smith via LibDig).

12. Fixed That For You: FAO @libdemvoice on Jennie Rigg’s blog.
“Jennie improves upon the “How LibDem are you?” questionnaire at the Voice. Now where can I buy a David Heath Action Figure?” (Submitted by burkesworks via LibDig).

And that’s it for another week. Happy blogging ‘n’ reading.

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