Welcome to the 33rd of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (30th September – 6th October), together with a hand-picked quintet you might otherwise have missed.

And – who’d have thought it? – the prospect of an election seems to have been dominating bloggers’ thoughts this week. Which may be why only two of our top seven posts talk about it. Here we go, in descending of popularity:

1. Zac Goldsmith to defect? on Mary Reid’s blog.
Not yet. But, as the Tories abandon any pretence they care about the environment, for how much longer?

2. Wild election rumour no.94: Zac Goldsmith defection on Lib Dem Voice.
See above.

3. SHOCK NEWS: Returning Officer makes pragmatic decision in support of the campaign! on Mark Valladeres’ Liberal Bureaucracy blog.
Good on, Mark. (And I bet all our Euro candidates are breathing a sigh of relief today safe in the knowledge the internal party elections will not now be postponed.)

4. Death of London Euro-candidate on Jonathan Fryer’s blog.
Recording with sadness the death of Dr John Stonehouse.

5. Oh, I Give In: Election Fever! on Alex Wilcock’s Love and Liberty blog.
“Maybe only a successful and united Tory Conference could derail an election now – and how likely’s that?” Ah, the joy of hindsight.

6. Michael Meadowcroft joins Lib Dems on Lib Dem Voice.
A nice way to end the week: it’s always good to see liberal Liberals joining the Liberal Democrats.

7. Welcome to Michael Meadowcroft on Jonathan Calder’s Liberal England blog.
Can anyone assist Lord Bonkers with the gardening?

And for my personal choice, here’s a blog posting from each day of the week tracing the election-that-wasn’t build-up:

8. General erection on Jock Coats’ blog.
“I want a revolution. A revolution of devolution.” A cri de coeur for citizen power.

9. If ever we needed a written constitution! on Suzanne Fletcher’s blog.
Perhaps even Gordon Brown might now face up to the idea that fixed-term Parliaments are a good idea.

10. Is election speculation turning people off? on Meral Hussein Ece’s Meral’s Musings blog.
“People understand that Brown and his inner circle are not looking for what is in the best interest of the country, but how best he and the Labour Party can keep themselves in power for as long as possible.” Which, we now know, is by not asking the public to decide.

11. Has Gordon Brown dropped a big hairy one? on James Graham’s Quaequam Blog! blog.
“The word hubris springs to mind.” Closely followed by nemesis.

12. To poll or not to poll, that is the question on Anders Hanson’s blog.
“It’s gone from seeming fairly unlikely, to possible, to very likely, to fairly unlikely, all in the space of just a few weeks.” Ah, the joy of politics.

That’s it for another week… looks like we’ll have to wait at least another year for the last peacetime Golden Dozen. Happy blogging.

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

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