Hearty apologies to James Graham who faithfully submitted his copy for Lib Dig Pig well in advance of his deadline despite his hellish week.  Unfortunately an editor who shall remain nameless didn’t press the right button and it languished in LDV’s “Unpublished drafts” folder until much of the content had been superseded by current affairs.

Welcome to the seventh edition of Lib Dig Pig, being a roundup of non-Lib Dem oriented gems on the internet, as voted by Lib Dem members using Lib Dig (if you aren’t one, and are a Lib Dem member, sign up here: http://libdig.co.uk).

This is going to be a spectacularly brief Lib Dig Pig as I am hellishly busy. Thankfully, you’ve made my life easy by, erm, digging my day job. Yes indeed, this week’s edition is: all about me.

Well, actually it isn’t. What it is really about is what an execrable Government we have right now and the urgent need to do something about it. It is with that in mind that your joint story of the week is the Guardian’s revelation that Harriet Harman had sneaked out the Freedom of Information (Parliament) Order last Thursday while everyone was fuming about the Government’s decision to build the Third Heathrow Runway (including John McDonnell, but we won’t link to his story as his mace-swinging antics didn’t get enough digs).

David Hencke – already a bit of a hero of mine – deserves full credit for breaking the story. If he hadn’t we might still be playing catch up. As it happens, a number of organisations were able to launch campaigns against this move over the weekend, including Unlock Democracy – which you also dug this week.

If only the great MP’s expenses cover up was the only example of EPIC FAIL in British politics. The other big story you dug this week is Henry Porter’s call to arms for civil libertarians everywhere to participate in the Convention on Modern Liberty.

Related to that, you dug the Independent’s coverage of the same issue and event and, ahem, the launch of the Carnival of Modern Liberty on Liberal Conspiracy.

Sadly, the FAIL even extends to the European Parliament, as your video of the week demonstrates:

Just in case that after all that you are feeling a bit paranoid, here is a soothing story of rationality about the internet, courtest of Technology Review.

And finally, a bit of humour (or is it?) courtesy of the Onion. Apparently the UN are planning to nuke our asses if we don’t all embrace disarmament. Or something. It actually makes a terrifying amount of sense.

Disclosure: in the interests of transparency (yes, some of us still believe in it), I should point out that I work for Unlock Democracy and am on the steering group of the Convention on Modern Liberty. But these genuinely are the most popular things you have voted for on Lib Dig this week. If you don’t like it, then dig something else that I won’t approve of!

Small Print

The rules for inclusion here are simple: they must have been “dug” for the first time in the last seven days and they can’t be Lib Dem-related or come from a Lib Dem blog (which thankfully means I don’t have to list any videos about cleaning flats and guitars). The top rated articles will be listed here. For the purposes of this column, my votes will be discounted. Finally, I may bend or break any of these rules as I see fit (this is absolutely terrible and I am dreadfully sorry about it).

PS LibDig the easy way – add the LibDig bookmarklet to your toolbar!