Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 258th weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere … Featuring the seven most popular stories according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (22nd-28th January, 2012), 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. Liberal Democrat Whip resigns over MEP selection on Chris Davies MEP’s blog.
Davies resigns as whip in a gesture of protest against the expected confirmation that Stewart Arnold is to be one of the party’s MEPs in the Yorkshire and Humber region.

2. Clegg’s e-mail signals start of fight back against Labour by Caron Lindsay on Caron’s Musings.
Caron praises “joined-up thinking” in the party’s comms.

3. Two difficult elections lead to two defeats by ALDC.
By-election commentary from the Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors.

4. Letting the side down? by Peter Wrigley on Keynesian Liberal.
Peter regrets the recent resignations of two Lib Dem MEPs.

5. Blog: Wallis succession: It just doesn’t sound right on Chris Davies MEP’s blog.
Davies opposes the possibility that Diana Wallis’s husband could succeed her as MEP.

6. For the benefit of Iain Duncan-Smith: a definition of homelessness by Mark Valladares on The View from Creeting St Peter.
Shelter’s official definition, in fact.

7. On “locking horns” with the Telegraph’s Cristina Odone by Stephen Tall on The Collected Stephen Tall.
As the Telegraph is forced to apologise after printing false claims about Chris Huhne, Stephen takes Cristina to task on Twitter.

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. Why are Paddy and other Lib Dem Peers picking this Welfare Reform fight? by Caron Lindsay on Caron’s Musings.
“A good look at the reasons behind the governmnent’s defeat on the benefit cap.” (Submitted by GeorgeWPotter via LibDig.)

9. We need to tackle ‘crony capitalism’ on our watch on Gareth Epps’ blog.
“A sorry tale of a lobbying organisation on behalf of property companies getting rather more equal access to Goverment than others.” (Submitted by garethepps via LibDig.)

10. The day the Coalition broke. Literally. by Stephen Tall on the Collected Stephen Tall.
“An allegory from Stephen Tall’s kitchen – his coalition mug breaks the very day Clegg calls for faster tax cuts.” (Submitted by helenduffett via LibDig.)

11. Yes to Help for Low Earners, But We NEED to Help the No-Earners Too! by Richard Flowers on The Very Fluffy Diary of Millennium Dome, Elephant.
“That Elephant gets it bang on yet again – we are not challenging the appalling way people who aren’t in work are treated.” (Submitted by Caron via LibDig.)

12. Question: Big or small government? Answer: effective by Henry Vann on Lib Dem Voice.
“Excellent post – ‘We are surely the party that says “I don’t care how big or small the state is; I care about the individual and their control over their life.”” (Submitted by stephenftall via LibDig.)

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

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