Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 253rd 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 (18-24 December, 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. Underestimating Danny Alexander by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England.
Mr Alexander doth speak in italics.
2. Odd defection news on Simon Wilson’s blog.
Musical chairs in Norfolk.
3. The Liberal Democrats in 2012 by Andrew Emmerson on The Yellow Bastard.
Andrew’s 6-point plan for growth.
4. Ed Milbiand, head in hands, caught on Google StreetView by Mark Pack.
5. I still don’t feel that sense of urgency… by Richard Morris on a View from Ham Common.
Richard’s finger wavers over the panic button…
6. Winning public support on the EU could not be more simple by Joshua Dixon on Liberal Insight.
Just talk about it, says Josh.
7. Guardian corrects 37 stories at once – is this a record? by Paul Walter on Liberal Burblings.
All related to the hacking of Milly Dowler’s voicemail.
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. How not to run an elected mayor campaign on Steve Middleton’s blog.
“If you’re politically naive, then it’s generally not a good idea to accept a public debate challenge from two veterans of local politics – but that’s exactly what Geoffrey Berg (Salford’s elected mayor petition organiser) did on Wednesday night. I’ve previously written extensively on my blog about Salford’s elected mayor referendum that was forced by Mr Berg and his English Democrat sidekick.” (Submitted by Actual via LibDig.)
9. ‘Nick Clegg sneers at Mr and Mrs Britain’ by Paul Walter on Liberal Burblings.
The Express takes “a particularly venoumous” pop at Nick Clegg’s comments about taxt breaks for married couples.
10. Tim Farron’s Christmas Message – and my challenge to him for 2012 by Caron Lindsay on Caron’s Musings.
“My challenge to our President for the New Year is to get through an entire Conference speech without one single football reference.”
11. Remembering David Penhaligon by Dan Falchikov on Living on words alone.
“His untimely death [25 years ago] robbed the party of one of its great communicators and almost certainly a future leader.”
12. Why Clegg was right to choose Popper by David Boyle on The Real Blog.
Popper was the central figure of Nick Clegg’s Demos speech this week and “is also, as it happens, the philosophical justification for Liberal-style localism – it is about “setting free the critical powers of man”.”
And that’s it for another week. Happy blogging ‘n’ reading ‘n’ nominating.

<a href="https://www.libdemvoice.org/top-of-the-blogs-the-lib-dem-golden-dozen-253-26408.html"><img src="https://www.libdemvoice.org/images/golden-dozen.png" width="200" height="57" alt="Featured on Liberal Democrat Voice" title="Featured on Liberal Democrat Voice" /></a>