Welcome to the 102nd of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (25th-31st January 2009), together with a hand-picked quintet, mostly courtesy of LibDig, you might otherwise have missed.

This week’s crop have something of a by-election flavour – something to do, I suspect, with this week’s stunning crop of Lib Dem victories. As ever, let’s start with the most popular post, and work our way down.

1. Liberal Democrat candidate silenced in Redbridge on Helen Duffett’s Paint the Town Orange blog.
Labour/Tory councillors override legal advice to gag member of the public from speaking in council. The story has a happy ending, though (see 6.).

2. Vince for leader on Peter Black AM’s blog.
Do you think Vince slipped the Beeb caption-writers a tenner?

3. Didsbury West by-election on Cllr Steve Cooke’s blog.
A great result for the Lib Dems in John Leech MP’s back-yard. You can enjoy Labour blogger Chris Paul’s graceful concession here.

4. Results: Thursday 29th January 2009 on John Hemming’s blog.
Did we mention this was a fantastic week for Lib Dem by-election performances?

5. Evan gets it wrong on royal bill on ‘Costigan Quist’s’ Himmelgarten Café blog.
Let’s hear it for the girls.

6. Lib Dem gain in Redbridge on Helen Duffett’s Paint the Town Orange blog.
Now the Labour/Tory parties in Redbridge will have to listen to Shoaib Patel in council. (See 1.)

7. Beware ID card “creep” on the Lib Dems’ Home Office Watch blog.
Really, what an ungallant way to warn folk about Jacqui Smith.

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. Aborting common sense on James Graham’s Quaequam Blog!
“‘What is being argued is that Obama is a good man; Obama would not exist if his foetus had been aborted; therefore abortion is bad.’ JG has little truck with this argument.” (Submitted by Alix via LibDig).

9. The genius of Polly Toynbee by Femme de Resistance on the Forceful and Moderate blog.
Sage advice from FdR: ‘If you want rid of her – ignore her.’

10. How not to write letters on Alix Mortimer’s The People’s Republic of Mortimer blog.
“Alix elegantly exposes Tory cheek on the expenses affair.” (Submitted by Bridget Fox via LibDig).

11. Who are you calling a stupid slut? on Sara Bedford’s Always win when you’re singing blog.
What Would Jesus Do with a problem like Christian Voice’s Stephen Green?

12. A forty-three word answer where one will do on Gavin Whenman’s Gaily Gigest blog.
“I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I gave him on 23 July 2007, Official Report, column 721W.” (Submitted by willhowells via LibDig).

That’s it for this week. Happy blogging!

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