Welcome to the 86th of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (5th-11th October), together with a hand-picked quintet you might otherwise have missed.

How about starting with the most popular blog-posting, and we work our way down? Here goes…

While the rest of the world was consumed by financial angst, a blog posting by Irfan Ahmed (which he has since withdrawn) set the Lib Dem blogosphere buzzing this week, triggering five of this week’s top seven most-read stories. It’s easy to chide this as navel-gazing introspection (to which, whisper it gently, political bloggers are sometimes prone); but, equally, the episode raises the very real liberal issue of if, or where, you draw the line when it comes to freedom of speech.

1. A high-wire act by Mr Ahmed and what it might mean for us all on Mark Valladares’ Liberal Bureaucracy blog.

2. I’m sorry Mark, but you’re just plain wrong on Sara Bedford’s Always win when you’re singing blog.

3. Women parliamentary candidates voting with their feet – is the Party fiddling while Rome burns? on Mark Valladares’ Liberal Bureaucracy blog.
Selecting female PPCs is only the start. The question is how do we support them to become future MPs?

4. Irfan Ahmed, bureaucrats and censorship again on Mark Valladares’ Liberal Bureaucracy blog.

5. Irfan and modern day witchhunts by Femme de Resistance on the Forceful and Moderate blog.

6. Clegg’s office on Lib Dem Voice.
So many of you, it seems, are eager to know what Nick keeps in his study.

7. In the immortal words of the Pub Landlord, “Irfan Ahmed, you’re barred!” once again on Mark Valladares’ Liberal Bureaucracy blog.

And now to the five slots we reserve under the category ‘well worth reading even if they didn’t get the most clicks this week’. Remember, if you do want to highlight a Lib Dem blog article published in the past seven days – your own, or someone else’s – all you have to do is drop me a line at [email protected] (providing the web-link and author, and any tagline comment you care to have published). My thanks to those who nominated this week’s postings.

8. Whisper it, it’s unfashionable, but political parties still need members on James Graham’s Quaequam Blog! blog.
A must-read article, and an even muster-read comments thread.

9. Day One: We have a by-election! on Fiona Whelan’s Hardwick Campaign blog.
A warm Lib Dem Voice welcome to Fiona, Lib Dem candidate in a by-election in Cambridgeshire, who will be blogging her campaign experiences.

10. Is it time for the Tories to ditch George Osborne? by Alix Mortimer on Lib Dem Voice.
The answer is yes, as they know only too well. But let’s not complain too loud, eh?

11. Should sex with an eighteen year old make you a sex offender? on Sara Bedford’s Always win when you’re singing blog.
“Of course a relationship of a teacher with a pupil is an abuse of trust … but a consensual relationship between two adults able to consent cannot be abuse, nor can one of the partners be classified as a sex offender.”

12. Palin v Biden debate on Saturday Night Live on Paul Walter’s Liberal Burlings blog.
If you’ve not yet seen this, make sure you do now.

That’s it for this week. Happy blogging.

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