Top of the Blogs: The Lib Dem Golden Dozen #249

Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 249th 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 (20-26 November, 2011), 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. Day 3977: If Mr Balls walks like a duck and talks like a duck, does that make him a QUACK? by Richard Flowers on The Very Fluffy Diary of Millennium Dome, Elephant.
Spitting out the Shadow Chancellor’s alternative medicine.

2. Lib Dems GAIN Hazelmere South, Conservatives fall to third place behind UKIP by Richard Clare on A Brief History of Liberty.
By-election roundup.

3. Charting the rise and fall of Nick Clegg… by Dan Falchikov on Living on Words Alone.
An academic study and a focus group.

4. Why the Lib Dems won’t be annihilated in 2015 by George Potter on The Potter Blogger.
” I think it’s not just plausible but likely that we will hang on to most of our seats and that we should keep Clegg as leader,” says George.

5. CPS Huhne decision “very close” by Paul Walter on Liberal Burblings.
Paul’s not holding his breath.

6. Loveday Jenkin wins Wendron by-election on Councillor Jeremy Rowe’s blog.

7. Crouch vs. Balls & Labour’s five point plan. by Chris Sams on The thoughts of a Ginger Liberal from Medway.
On political point scoring.

And now to the five blog-posts that come highly recommended, regardless of the number of Aggregator click-throughs they attracted. These are normally 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. Lib Dem success in benefit increase debate on Nick Thornsby’s blog.
” “Over recent weeks, a fierce debate has been raging at the centre of government over the rate at which benefits will be increased next year…” writes Nick.” (Submitted by markpack via LibDig.)

9. Energy and Action on Jazz Hands Serious Business.
“Some thoughts about online Lib Dem peer support groups, and how they tie into campaigning for and within the party.” (Submitted by dave.page via LibDig.)

10. Youth Jobs. I’m spending the whole weekend worrying…. by Richard Morris on A View from Ham Common.
“Labour say that the new Youth jobs scheme will be paid for by freezing tax credits for the most poorly paid. Please don’t let it be true.” (Submitted by Richard Morris via LibDig.)

11. Paul Waugh gives more examples of Lib Dems stopping Tories doing their worst by Caron Lindsay on Caron’s Musings.
“Remember that as you hit the doorsteps and people express their concerns about the coalition – we have a lot to be proud of and things would be a lot worse without us there,” says Caron.

12. Majority support for Union according to the Mail on Nic Prigg’s blog.
Nicola would like to see Westminster helping to forge a new path.

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

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