Welcome to the 111th (and, yes, I am hopping) of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (29th March – 4th April 2009), together with a hand-picked quintet, mostly courtesy of LibDig, you might otherwise have missed.

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

1. Welcome to the Irfan Ahmed Challenge! on Mark Valladares’ Liberal Bureaucracy blog.
The vexed question of MPs’ expenses becomes even more vexed.

2. Liberal Youth: Chair election – the result… on Mark Valladares’ Liberal Bureaucracy blog (again).
The saga concludes at last (and not before time). Congratulations to Elaine; commiserations to the runners-up.

3. Amazing by-election win for Liberal Democrats on Ed Fordham’s 474 votes to win blog.
Congratulations to newly-elected Cllr Tom Simon, and the Belsize Lib Dems.

4. Liberal Youth: now that the counting is over on Mark Valladares’ Liberal Bureaucracy blog (yet again).
The prophesy of Lady Mark: ‘elections are like thunderstorms, sometimes they clear the air, occasionally a lightning strike is fatal’.

5. Election Results 2nd April 2009 on John Hemming MP’s blog.
One gain (from Labour); one loss (to the Tories).

6. I don’t really live in Watford because it’s a long way from London, says town’s MP on Sara Bedford’s Always win when you’re singing blog.
Watford’s Labour MP Claire Ward seeks to justify her second home.

7. Liberal Youth – the waiting is nearly over… on Mark Valladares’ Liberal Bureaucracy blog (yet a-bleedin’-gain).
Mark teases an agog Lib Dem electorate.

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. The police adverts: what happens when you text them on ‘Costigan Quist’s’ Himmelgarten Cafe blog.
Mr Quist investigates with the wit and elan of a male Hetty Wainthropp. (Submitted by willhowells via LibDig).

9. Just Been to the Bank of England Protest on Andy Hinton’s Wouldn’t It Be Scarier? blog.
‘An eye witness account worth more than a dozen BBC reports of “the police a briefing me that…”‘ (Submitted by Richard F via LibDig).

10. Porn on expenses – nothing to hide, Jacqui Smith? by Alix Mortimer on Lib Dem Voice.
‘Good piece by Alix Mortimer on Jacqui Smith’s “cum-uppance” over porn expenses and the many distinct ways in which it is embarrassing.’ (Submitted by jonball via LibDig).

11. In defence of Eric Pickles on James Graham’s Quaequam Blog!
‘James is right, we need our MPs to be able to do their jobs effectively, we believe in representative democracy, and MPs need to be able to get to/from the house easily in order to scrutinise and legislate effectively. The system needs reform, but a braying mob attacking all MPs isn’t the way to do it.’ (Submitted by MatGB via LibDig).

12. Time To Rethink The LD Blogosphere? on Charlotte Gore’s Life, Libertarianism, The Lib Dems and Me blog.
Charlotte’s challenge to us all: ‘I’m laying down the gauntlet here, and I’m asking Lib Dem bloggers – if they haven’t already – to create their own blogrolls. Link to the blogs you read, you admire and you enjoy. Ask them to link back to you. Let’s get back to basics and begin linking to each other, rather than depending exclusively on a hub.’

That’s it for another week. Happy blogging.

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