Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 324th 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 (28 April – 4 May, 2013), 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. On being a Lib Dem in Bristol today by Andrew Brown on The Widow’s World .
Andrew reflects on the party’s losses in the city and looks to the future.

2. Each time I hear about Nigel Farage, I puzzle about Caroline Lucas  by Mark Pack on Mark Pack.
So, why have the Greens not made the same impact as UKIP. Mark has some ideas.

3. The green shoots of Liberal Democrat recovery are appearing by Richard Morris on A View from Ham Common .
Richard sees reasons to be cheerful in Friday’s results.

4. A quick and dirty analysis of results in Mid Suffolk by Mark Valladares on The View from Creeting St Peter.
Actually quite intelligent and thoughtful.

5. Labour are biggest losers from UKIP’s surge by Mark Pack on Mark Pack.
With a snazzy infographic to illustrate the point.

6. Welcome to the big leagues, UKIP by Carl Minns on A liberal view from Hull .
A reality check from Carl for those UKIP members who think they’re being hard done by in the media.

7. The party who should be most worried by today’s election result  by Charlotte Henry on Digital Politico.
“Greens have failed to capitalise on any anti-politics sentiment, and are slipping into irrelevance.”

And now to the five blog-posts that come highly recommended, regardless of the number of Aggregator click-throughs they attracted. These are normally 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.Why any analysis of the local election results cannot be extrapolated to a General Election by Jennie Rigg on Jennie Rigg.
Jennie injects a note of caution into projections. There’s a long way to go and the data on which these predictions are made is incomplete, she argues.

9. The speech I couldn’t finish by Ewan Hoyle on Ewan has something to say
I was there for this speech made during one of the most powerful, intense and meaningful debates I’ve ever been at. He argues that we must teach children to recognise when their mental health may be deteriorating.

10. Vigilant against the post-human future by David Boyle on The Real Blog .
David looks at the phrase “better than real.”

11. Liberal Mondays 2: Conrad Russell – The Liberal Cause by Alex Wilcock on Love and Liberty.
Alex has written loads this week, including reviews of The Politician’s Husband and Broadchurch, but I would be neglecting my duty if I didn’t put his post about Conrad Russell before you.

12.Housing ambition and disciplining the poor  by Alex Marsh on Alex’s Archives.
A long read, but an interesting in depth analysis of the proposals by a Housing Association to introduce “ambition contracts” with tenants

For a Bank Holiday Bonus, try this longer read, an anthropological study of the Liberal Democrat breed by One Who Knows. Fred Carver spent six years at the heart of the party and his observations are astute, hilarious, harsh in places and brilliant. 

As another bonus, until recently, Graeme was an occasionally grumpy Liberal Democrat spin doctor. Then he gave it up to go work for Volunteer Uganda. He’s been on holiday in Kenya this week and writes here about the kindness of strangers.

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

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* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social