Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 201st 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 (19th -25th December, 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. David Laws to return as minister in Justice Department? on Paul Walter’s Liberal Burblings.
Paul keeps an eye on the speculation.

2. Cable Unplugged on Gareth Epps’ blog.
Gareth says Vince should have stood up to Murdoch.

3. Vince Cable tells the truth about the nature of coalition government by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England.
Jonathan is reassured by Vince’s candour.

4. 3 things about ‘Cablegate’ on Gareth Epps’ blog.
“Politics as usual, in other words,” says Gareth.

5. Andrew Reeves is still suspended on Twitter – but the support is awesome on Andrew Reeves’ Running Blog.
Andrew’s Twitter account has since been restored.

6. Tim Farron; I’ll not be checking birth certificates at my surgery by Caron Lindsay on Caron’s Musings.
Best. Opening paragraph. Ever.

7. Another Spineless MP Comes Out by Jason Kay on Neue Politik.
“This is a man who voted more times against LGBT rights than he has voted for,” writes Jason.

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. Christmas guidance for party factions by Andy Mayer on Liberal Vision.
“An appropriately humourous (or was that satirical?) post for the season. Gentle mockery dispensed to all parts of the party :)” (Submitted by Niklas Smith via LibDig.)

9. Lib Dem Party will survive… by Rob Stickland on Rob’s View (from the sidelines).
“Rob gives a simply yet succint reason as to why he thinks the LibDems will survive. who says you need to right an essay to be right?” (Submitted by lisaharding42 via LibDig.)

10. Why some of the ‘wets’ in the Lib Dems need to grow a backbone by Mathew Hulbert on A Liberal Helping.
“Mathew Hulbert asks ‘Are we a pressure group or are we a political party?’ ” (Submitted by cjw500 via LibDig.)

11. The Conservative run #No2AV campaign on Chris Richards’ On Liberty Now.
“The ‘No to AV’ campaign has had several months to recruit their ‘truly cross-party, non-partisan grassroots campaign’ team. Behind the spin and after all these months the names behind the key posts at ‘No to AV’ are all Conservative and we still don’t know who is funding them.” (Submitted by Chris Richards via LibDig.)

12. Notes for activists: Increasing voter turnout by Matthew Gibson on Solution Focused Politics.
“How to increase turnout in single-person households by ten percentage points. Perhaps also a good method to use on students and young people?” (Submitted by Niklas Smith via LibDig.)

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

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