Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #361

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 361st 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 (5-11 January, 2014), 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. 7 quick observations on what Lord Ashcroft’s new polling says about the Liberal Democrats by Mark Pack on Mark Pack.
And some of it should encourage us to get on out there and campaign.

2. An unnatural coalition by Iain Brodie Brown on Birkdale Focus.
David Steel and Alan Beith take part in a programme about liberal history that sounds worth listening to.

3. A highly sentimental blog from Erica and Richard by Richard Kemp on But what does Richard Kemp think.
Good news about baby Jonah, and I’m sure the family has all the best wishes of everyone at LDV and all our readers.

4. A personal message about our grandson by Erica and Richard by Richard Kemp on But what does Richard Kemp think.
Richard describes an incredibly worrying time for the family.

5. Vice chancellors gather in the tuition fees gold by Chris Smith on A Liberal Democrat in the Royal Borough.
Record numbers going to uni, but also a whacking great pay rise for university bosses.

6. Ashdown speaks out by Mark Smulian on Liberator’s Blog.
Paddy vs Liberator. To see the interview in full, you’ll need to subscribe, but there are worse things you could do cos it’s a good read..

7. When you lean against an Oyster machine by mistake by David Boyle on The Real Blog.
The perils of modern technology.

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. Some myths about bisexuality by Andrew Page on A Scottish Liberal.
“A gentle dispelling without falling into the elephant traps some blogposts do.” (Submitted by Jen via LibDig.)

9. “Banished for questioning the gospel of guns” by Jon on Contrasting Sounds.
Analysis of the sacking of a columnist who dared to suggest that there may be limits to the 2nd amendment

10. How to do politics better: Yet another suggestion by Jennie Rigg on The beauty in me? The beauty’s the beast.
We should be disruptive innovators. To be fair there’s probably not many people better at both than Jennie…

11. The Lib Dems must make tackling youth unemployment their long term misison by Mathew Hulbert on The Staggers.
The state should never turn its back on young people, says Mathew.

12. Political sea changes by Peter Wrigley on A Keynesian Liberal.
Peter sees signs of hope for the future.

And one nomination from last week that I forgot about. It’s a good one. It has Lembit in it. Paul Walter recounts the experience of being interviewed in the street by Lembit for Iranian funded tv.

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

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