Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 214th 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 (20th -27th, 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. Is Nick Clegg a Lib Dem? by Linda Jack on Lindylooz Muze.
On Nick’s “open mic” moment.

2. Is Michael Crick Right? Was it a “dull Budget”? on John Leech MP’s blog.
If “The £1000 increase in the personal allowance and confirmation that it will increase to £8105 by 2012, taking 1.1 million out of paying tax altogether” is dull, then John’ll settle for that.

3. Charles Kennedy is not a Keynesian by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England.
“The point of this post is not to have a go at Charles. It is to ask whether counter-cyclical Keynesian spending polices are politically possible,” says Jonathan.

4. Dear Nick Clegg, 10 things you can disagree with Cameron on on Zoe O’ Connell’s Complicity.
Zoe’s pocket guide.

5. Local Green candidate shows her true colours by Steve Boswell on ChoccyHobNobBlog.
A wake goes sour…

6. The day Ed’s leadership died by Daniel Furr on Too lib·er·al [adj.].
When Labour jumped the (Budget) gun.

7. Zuffar Haq to fight Leicester South by-election for Liberal Democrats by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England.
“Zuffar, who fought Harborough at the last general election and has family roots in Leicestershire that go back for almost a century, will make a very strong candidate.”

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. Manifesto commitments in coalitions by Chris Jenkinson on My tale of me.
“The Guardian asks what is the point of manifestos in this coalition world. I’m not ashamed of the decision by my party to join in coalition with the Conservatives. It isn’t ideal. But we didn’t convince enough of the public to vote for the Liberal Democrats to win a majority in the House of Commons. The votes were as they were, and the seats were as they were – a hung parliament.” (Submitted by Chris Jenkinson via LibDig.)

9. More successes for the Liberal Democrats in Government on Peter Black AM’s blog.
“The party continues to work in the back rooms and the media manage to miss anything resembling the positive that we do.” (Submitted by tinalouise via LibDig.)

10. Does anyone like the term Alarm Clock Britain? by Caron Lindsay on Caron’s Musings.
Caron gets the principle, but hates the label.

11. The Lib Dem rebrand – tipping the scales of nonsense stories by Charlotte Henry on Virtually Naked.
“The Liberal Democrats are having to consider how to brand themselves now that they are a party of government, but that is as far as it goes. The full rebrand is a complete non-starter.”

12. What’s it all about? by Spidey on LibDems Who Point.
“Up and down the UK, we LibDem’s are busy hunting down the things that irritate our residents the most. Whether we are councillors, candidates or campaigners, we seek out the greatest irritants and submit them to the ultimate humuliation and first step in their eradication. We point at them (and frown) and publish their photographs.” (Submitted by lisaharding42 via LibDig.)

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

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