Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 204th 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 (9th-15th January, 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. Daring to whisper the D word as I see reports from Oldham East and Saddlworth by Caron Lindsay on Caron’s Musings.
Caron hoped for a late surge, Dunfermline-style.

2. Live Blog: The Oldham East & Saddleworth Count on Nick Thornsby’s Blog.
Our Man on the Media Balcony kept us up-to-date.

3. Oldham – implications for Labour by Andy Mayer on Liberal Vision.
“…not a surprising result, nor a particularly good one,” writes Andy.

4. An Interesting Table from Oldham East & Saddleworth on Nick Thornsby’s Blog.
When Lib Dems outperform the opinion polls.

5. Oldham East and Saddleworth – a foot soldiers viewpoint on Andrew Reeves’ Running Blog.
You’ll need a new pair of boots for Barnsley, Andrew.

6. Oldham East and Saddleworth: my post mortem by Neil Bradbury on Northern Neil.
“…contrary to reports that we are horribly divided and about to cease to exist, the Lib Dem activists came to Oldham in their droves,” says Neil.

7. The Dream Dissolves … by Jools Roskams on JulesDR.
Jules believes that Tuition Fees were a compromise too far.

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. Learning from Ronald Reagan, master storyteller on Neil Stockley’s blog.
“What Obama might be able to learn from the ‘Big Gipper’ ” (Submitted by stephenftall via LibDig.)

9. People don’t vote for what you do, they vote for why you do it (lessons for the Lib Dems) by Matthew Gibson on Solution Focused Politics.
Some simple advice for long-term political success: “Stick to your beliefs, do what you do because of your beliefs and you will increase your voter base.” (Submitted by stephenftall via LibDig.)

10. The Oldham East & Saddleworth result is non event by Lisa Harding on Spiderplant Land.
“There was a by election in Oldham East & Saddleworth. Nothing to see here. Move along.” (Submitted by lisaharding42 via LibDig.)

11. Why I now support the Big Society by Mathew Hulbert on A Liberal Helping.
“Mathew Hulbert realises that the “Big Society” is actually rather liberal when he looks at the local level.” (Submitted by Niklas Smith via LibDig.)

12. Scaremongering on jobs? on Jackie Pearcey’s blog.
More info about Labour’s decision to talk about job losses on polling day. (Submitted by niles via LibDig.)

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

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