Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 173rd weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere … Featuring the seven most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (6th – 12th June, 2010), together with a hand-picked quintet, normally courtesy of LibDig, you might otherwise have missed.

Don’t forget: you can 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. Pollwatch: Ipsos MORI helps to explain disappointing Lib Dem performance in 2010 on Neil Stockley’s blog.
6 key findings to help us understand what happened on 7th May.

2. … What was that about protecting the poorest? on Paul Walter’s Liberal Burblings.
None too impressed by the move to scrap Labour’s plans to extend free school meals (not that Labour ever explained how they’d pay for it, mind).

3. Another door knocking session about the Coalition on Jonathan Wallace’s blog.
Finding out wat people think the traditional way.

4. Can Lib Dems be in government and opposition simultaneously? on Mark Thompson’s Mark Reckons.
I think we’re about to find out.

5. Nick Clegg at Hay-on-Wye Literary Festival by Peter Black on Freedom Central.
Our DPM wows the masses.

6. Tory opponents of AV are falling into a trap on Mark Thompson’s Mark Reckons.
The Tories’ express a new-found concern with the electoral system’s fairness.

7. Clegg’s slip of the tongue on Peter Black’s blog.
Has Nick “developed a certain blind spot when it comes to Wales”?

And now to the five blog-posts that come highly recommended, regardless of the number of Aggregator click-throughs they attracted. These are chosen using the LibDig bookmarking website for party members, the site where you can highlight blog-posts you want to share with your fellow Lib Dems. Remember, though, you’re still more than welcome to nominate for the Golden Dozen 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].

8. Save the Monarchy (and British history) from the Labour party on Lisa Harding’s Spiderplant Land.
‘I see no justification for dissolution of the monarchy and certainly not on meritocratic grounds,’ argues Lisa. (Submitted by dazmando via LibDig).

9. David Willetts: Two Brains and No Clue on Dispatches from the Land of Cleggeron.
“Not quite as anti-Willetts as the title implies, but a very interesting read on the cost of university and the real issues that are not being properly debated.” (Submitted by Niklas Smith via LibDig).

10. Cancelling the extension of free school meals on Jonathan Calder’s Liberal England.
“Jonathan Calder puts it succinctly: ‘It is far from clear to me that Liberal Democrat members should die in the ditch for Labour policies.'” (Submitted by mark.pack via LibDig).

11. Vuvuzela: Where Capitalism Meets Communism on Charlotte Gore’s blog.
“Charlotte Gore on how capitalism (cheap plastic vuvuzelas) has realised the dream of equality at last, at least in one field.” (Submitted by Niklas Smith via LibDig).

12. When Hansard goes bad on Will Howell’s No Geek Is An Island.
Anne McGuire delivers a line which kinda lingers in the mind.

And that’s it for another week. Happy blogging ‘n’ reading.

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