Welcome to the 140th of our weekly round-ups from the Lib Dem blogosphere, featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (18th – 24th October 2009), together with a hand-picked quintet, partly courtesy of LibDig, you might otherwise have missed.

Don’t forget, by the way, you can now sign up to receive the Golden Dozen direct to your email inbox – just click here – ensuring you never miss out on the best of Lib Dem blogging.

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

1. When Postal Strikes and NHS Bureaucracy Collide on Alex Wilcock’s Love and Liberty blog.
“The CWU may have a case against some of the Royal Mail’s actions… But months of insufferable strikes before they even treat us to this week’s ‘official’ one have shot away every vestige of public sympathy.”

2. Opinion: Why we should all be 40% taxpayers! by Joe Bourke on Lib Dem Voice.
Good (and slightly bizarre) to see a detailed examination of tax structures so high up the G12 chart.

3. What does Iain Dale’s failure say about modern electoral politics? by Mark Littlewood on Liberal Vision’s blog.
“I basically want my politicians to be controversial, lazy and rather aloof,” declares Mark.

4. Nick Griffin on BBC Question Time – the verdict, #bbcqt on Mark Thopmson’s Mark Reckons blog.
“Griffin and his views are widely reviled but to allow the show to become dominated by him in this way makes him and his views seem more important than they really are.”

5. Rennard’s expenses clearance: Party needs to learn some lessons in transparency by Stephen Tall on Lib Dem Voice.
“… the party needs to walk the talk, and prove that our commitment to expenses reform – to openness and transparency – apply to all our Parliamentarians, regardless of the position they hold or the esteem in which they’re held.”

6. What did you make of Chris Huhne’s Question Time performance? #bbcqt by Stephen Tall on Lib Dem Voice.
Did Chris miss his opportunity to present a liberal case for immigration?

7. The police get a bit of a surprise when they try to stop someone taking photos by Mark Pack on Lib Dem Voice.
The tale of a citizen’s self-arrest.

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 a line to [email protected] (providing the web-link and author, and any tagline comment you care to have published).

8. The more publicity Nick Griffin gets the better on Jonathan Calder’s Liberal England blog.
“As Jonathan says, the events of the last few days show how misguided the “no platform” approach is to combating the BNP.” (Submitted by mark pack via LibDig).

9. Opinion: A Liberal Line on Immigration by Patrick Murray on Lib Dem Voice.
“Patrick Murray calls for the Lib Dems to stick to their principles in the immigration debate.” (Submitted by james.graham via LibDig).

10. Isn’t an Independent just that? on Sara Bedford’s Always win qhen you’re singing blog.
The two Independent candidates in Bedford are finding it difficult to achieve grace in defeat, it seems.

11. Question Time – what’s the worst that could happen tonight? on Jonny Wright’s Hug a Hoodie blog.
“As a supporter of a tolerant society, which headline would you rather read in tomorrow’s papers? ‘Racist exposed on TV’? Or ‘Griffin shouted down by protesters’?”

12. Day 3210: The Vince and the Paupers on Millennium Dome, Elephant’s Very Fluffy Diary blog.
“I think we all know that for all that he was VERY good as acting leader, he did have that magical aura of protection in the word “acting” that would have vanished quickly if he’d gone from acting to actual.”

And that’s it for another week. Happy blogging.

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