Welcome to the 141st 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. Ex-Liberal Democrats in the News (including two you may not have spotted) on Alex Wilcock’s Love and Liberty blog.
The inside-track on Martin Lewis’ and Elizabeth Truss’s youthful indiscretions.

2. Conservative smear campaign or just stupidity? on Matt Davies’s Politics. Spurs. Music. Waffle blog.
Yes, it’s the rather pathetic smear-without-apology campaign by Tory PPC for St Austell & Newquay, Caroline Righton.

3. Newly selected Tory candidate might be deselected within days on Nich Starling’s Norfolk Blogger blog.
Liz (as she now is) Truss makes the headlines, as South-West Norfolk Tories get their knickers-in-a-hypocritical-twist.

4. Is Caroline Righton, The Conservative Candidate for St Austell & Newquay, telling fibs about her Lib Dem opponenent? on Nich Starling’s Norfolk Blogger blog.
Here’s the short answer: yes.

5. Nick Griffin has a Mother-in-Law from heaven… on John Ault’s Alter Ego blog.
“A work-shy pretender” – I’m sure he’s been called worse.

6. Mark Littlewood resigns Lib Dem membership for IEA Director job by Richard Huzzey on Lib Dem Voice.
Which other party member could trigger a 175-comment thread?

7. Watford’s liberal Lib Dem Mayor – what Iain Dale didn’t report by Stephen Tall on Lib Dem Voice.
Why bother with facts when you can copy ‘n’ paste from the Metro website?

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. Flat Earth News strikes Watford on Sara Bedford’s Always sing when you’re winning blog.
“Sara Bedford takes apart the parents banned from play areas furore.” (Submitted by scmjerram via LibDig).

9. The Caroline Righton smear campaign moves onto Wikipedia on Andrew Reeves’ Running Blog.
“One of those stories of staff members editing wikipedia while not really having an inkling of how it works.” (Submitted by scmjerram via LibDig).

10. Andrew Hickey on drugs: half right on James Graham’s Quaequam Blog!
‘Ultimately, modern science poses a lot of uncomfortable questions about to what extent we can be said to exert free will. We need to engage with that debate not merely wrap ourselves in Victorian philosophy and hope it will go away.’ (Submitted by markpack via LibDig).

11. Whatever A.N. Wilson has been taking, it isn’t a dose of common sense or scientific understanding! on Sara Bedford’s Always win when you’re singing blog.
“Sara Bedford takes A. N. Wilson apart.” (Submitted by scmjerram via LibDig).

12. New Edict from Non-Scientific Home Office on Stephen Glenn’s Linlithgow Journal.
“Stephen has uncovered the policy document that made Prof Nutt’s position untenable. … well I laughed.” (Submitted by scmjerram via LibDig).

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

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