Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 259th 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 (29 January – 4 February, 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. My faith in my party and this government is gone forever by Lisa Harding on Spiderplantland.
On redundancy and the Welfare Reform Bill.

2. Betrayal and Loathing In the Lib Dems on Steve Pitt’s Blog: Life & Politics in Wirral.
Steve sadly contemplates a name change for the party.

3. This means war by George Potter on The Potter Blogger.
On Lib Dem MPs’ votes in support of the government’s welfare reforms.

4. Ed Davey is not fit to be a Cabinet minister on Gareth Epps’ blog.
Gareth disagrees with Nick.

5. Come on Davey light my fire by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England.
“Let’s hope he can surprise me in his new role as Energy Secretary,” says Jonathan.

6. Why are Liberal Democrats becoming hostile to genuine liberal reforms? by Daniel Furr on Too Liberal.
Daniel wants to see more competition.

7. Gay ex-footballer talks openly to A Scottish Liberal by Andrew Page on A Scottish Liberal.
“Look, there are quite a lot of gay footballers. They’re not all playing in the Premier League but they’re out there. I was one of them. There have always been others.”

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. Headlines you won’t read today: University applications up this year more than 16% by Stephen Tall on The Collected Stephen Tall.
“Excellent piece of analysis from Stephen putting the headline figures into proper context” (Submitted by markpack via LibDig.)

9. If tuition fees work, but keep us out of government for 80 years, is that a price worth paying? by Richard Morris on A View from Ham Common.
“Richard Morris asks the tricky question, “If tuition fees work, but keep us out of government for 80 years, is that a price worth paying?”” (Submitted by stephenftall via LibDig.)

10. Metablog: The Labour Party needs to win moral, not economic, credibility by Jack Holroyde on Gaining the Advantage.
“Not because I like the Labour party, or dislike the coalition – but because a strong, principled and visionary opposition is the best thing for all of us.” (Submitted by @theGladstonian via Twitter.)

11. Simon Hughes: Young people have not been put off university… by Tim Holyoake on Just One More Ten Pence Piece ….
“This post specifically looks at the issues surrounding fees for mature and part time students and has provoked a little debate in the comments too.” (Submitted by Tim Holyoake via email.)

12. ECFR Scorecard – Britain’s role in EU Foreign Policy by Morgan Griffith-David on Spineless Liberal.
“Britain as “Great” is a fait accompli no longer, and we must fight for our place on the world stage – the European Union offers us the best opportunity to hold on to our waning power” (Submitted by Alisdair McGregor via email.)

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

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