Welcome to the 118th of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (17th-23rd May 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. Thank you on Ryan Cullen’s The Artesea blog.
The Aggregator was dead; long live the Aggregator (and Ryan).

2. NEW POLL: who do you think should be the next Speaker? by Stephen Tall on Lib Dem Voice.
Last time I looked at the results, Labour’s Frank Field (19%) was nosing ahead of the Lib Dems’ Alan Beith (18%). The poll’s still open – eyes right – if you’ve not yet voted.

3. Rennard Quits on Linda Jack’s Lindyloo’s Muze blog.
It’s the email that rocked the world of the Lib Dems last week.
4. Lib Dems “detached from politics” on ‘Costigan Quist’s’ Himmelgarten Cafe blog.
Taking issue with the Thunderer: ‘Here’s a tip for The Times: whether you like it or not, and how ever much you wish it wasn’t true, the Liberal Democrats are right at the heart of the current political battles.’

5. What did the Federal Executive Decide? on Charlotte Gore’s blog.
After all the anticipation, the Lib Dem blogosphere felt somewhat let-down by the lack of post-meeting communication.

6. Parliament In Crisis: A Good Day For Nick, But A Lot More Questions To Come on Alex Wilcock’s Love and Liberty blog.
Defining the central question MPs should ask themselves before submitting an expenses claim: ‘ Is this taking the piss?’

7. LDV Members’ Survey – MPs’ expenses (1): what you said about Chris Rennard by Stephen Tall on Lib Dem Voice.
The LDV-reading party membership made clear their dismay if allegations levelled against party chief executive Lord (Chris) Rennard are substantiated.

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. Parliament, The Telegraph and Jo Swinson on James Graham’s Quaequam Blog!
“James forensically takes apart the Telegraph’s innuendo filled hatchet job on Jo.” (Submitted by Caron via LibDig).

9. Jo responds to Daily Telegraph allegations on Jo Swinson MP’s website.
“For the record.” (Submitted by james.graham via LibDig).

10. On Scrutinising Government by Ali Goldsworthy on the Freedom Central blog.
“As the ranks of the Welsh journalistic corps wake up and think, ‘Bugger, wish I’d thought to check if he had any trousers to go with his big mouth!'” (Nominated by Gareth Aubrey via email).

11. The Fox puts away his Cow Gum on Duncan Borrowman’s blog.
A forthright tribute: ‘It is quite fashionable to slag off Chris [Rennard] these days. But for all the ungrateful b*$^@%}s out there, you would not be in the position now of being members of a party with so many MPs, with such high ratings if it was not for Chris. In fact, if it was not for Chris the party may well have completely disappeared in the 1980s.’

12. The New Mood For Change on Andy Hinton’s Wouldn’t It Be Scarier blog.
A well-argued 4-point programme of democratic reforms.

That’s it for another week. Ish. Happy blogging.

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