Welcome to the 100th of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere – yes, the Golden Dozen has reached its ton! Which means it’s almost two years since I suggested the feature to LDV founder Rob Fenwick at Westminster Liberal Drinks in February 2007. The concept hasn’t strayed much from the original brief outlined in the very first Golden Dozen:

The idea is simple enough. Each week, we’ll list the top postings which have appeared on the Lib Dem Blogs Aggregator during the previous seven days. And then I’ll hand-pick another five you might have otherwise missed to showcase the diversity of talent within the Lib Dem blogosphere.

In fact all that’s changed has been the erosion of the benign dictatorship I originally exerted over the ‘hand-picked five’ – now it’s you who nominates them, mostly via LibDig, another of Ryan Cullen‘s genius creations which allows us to share our favourite website links with other Liberal Democrat members.

Anyway, enough already with the nostalgia, and let’s get down to our belated business: revealing the most popular Lib Dem blog posts published between 11-17th January 2009, according to Aggregator click-throughs, together with your hand-picked quintet of posts that might otherwise have been missed.

As ever, let’s start with the most popular post, and work our way down.

1. Norman Tebbit Is An Undead Christmas Present For Labour on Alex Wilcock’s Love and Liberty blog.
‘If Norman Tebbit wants the Tories to win the next election, he should climb back into his coffin and refuse the bait of any media appearances.’ Note the ‘if’.

2. Charles Darwin had blogger’s block too on Helen Duffett’s Paint the Town Orange blog.
A second Golden Dozen appearance for this explanation of what bloggers should do when we find ourselves in a sticky patch.

3. EXCLUSIVE: what would have happened if the FPC had not voted to scrap tuition fees on Antony Hook’s blog.
A big row, apparently. Any bright ideas for how to grab the media’s attention at the party’s spring conference now?

4. Conservative Portsmouth councillor quits amidst claims of hate campaign on Lib Dem Voice.
Maybe the Tories should send in Boris to mediate?

5. Heathrow: proof that the middle classes are pandered to by politicians and media alike? on Mark Valladares’ Liberal Bureaucracy blog.
Asking the question, ‘If Heathrow expansion is to be prevented, how do those wanting to, or needing to, travel get to their destinations?’ I wouldn’t say that too loudly near Susan Kramer, Mark.

6. Tottenham by-election on Lynne Featherstone MP’s Parliament & Haringey blog.
Lynne notes the 8% swing from Labour to Lib Dem, ‘a swing that would see us very comfortably into control of Haringey Council when the local elections come in 2010’.

7. This post has got the LOT: Twitter, The Daily Mail, free speech, James Graham, etc… on Helen Duffett’s Paint the Town Orange blog
Not often you see the words ‘Daily Mail’ and ‘free speech’ in the same sentence. My favourite Daily Mail-o-matic headline? – ARE PAEDOPHILES GIVING YOUR MORTGAGE DIABETES?

And now to the five blog-posts that come highly recommended regardless of the number of Aggregator click-throughs they attracted. As is now traditional we’re using the LibDig widget to select some of the posts from the seven days in question which you’ve most ‘dug’. But, remember, if you want to highlight 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 me a line at [email protected] (providing the web-link and author, and any tagline comment you care to have published).

8. It’s a real Ealing comedy, as Tories go hysterical on Sara Bedford’s Always win when you’re singing blog.
“Sara’s excellent riposte to a somewhat bizarre conspiracy theory on an Ealing Tory Councillor’s blog. I haven’t laughed so much in ages!” (Nominated by jonball via LibDig).

9. Paranoia, paranoia… on Alix Mortimer’s The People’s Republic of Mortimer blog.
‘I am Derek Draper. … I have three big problems. (1) Everybody hates me, (2) most people hate Labour, (3) certain individuals who fall into groups (1) and (2) already have extremely powerful political blogs and will not hesitate to pour guano over a new Labour contender.’ (Nominated by nedward via LibDig).

10. The difference between liberal and conservative views of rights on Antony Hook’s blog.
“Anthony Hook pinpoints a difference between liberals and conservatives that can be seen in their attitudes to issues close to home (prisons) and further afield (Gaza).” (Nominated by lizw via LibDig).

11. Diversity 101 on Jo Christie-Smith’s blog.
‘Equality does not just happen; surely millennia of human civilisation has taught us that? … we need to get much more radical and look at how the Liberal Democrats are going to change the way we do things to make being involved as easy for a woman in her thirties with 2 children to look after as it is for a similar man.’

12. Do you “deserve” your rights? on James Graham’s Quaequam Blog!
“The Tories + human rights. Be very afraid.” (Nominated by Alix via LibDig).

That’s it for this week. Happy blogging, and here’s to the Golden Dozen’s next century!

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