Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 279th 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 (17-23 June, 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. Downing Street confirms the Tories are plotting policy in secret. That’s not good… by Richard Morris on A View from Ham Common.
“…they need to remember, they didn’t win…”

2. Poll: Should the Lib Dems go into the next General Election with a new leader? by Richard Morris on A View from Ham Common.
A simple, unscientific poll.

3. Jimmy Carr’s future as a satirist… by Dan Falchikov on Living on Words Alone.
“… is probably over.”

4. A reminder of the fantastic farce that was Labour leadership plotting on Mark Pack’s blog.
“Downing Street said last night that it had received the letter, but that it had been sent to a random fax machine.”

5. Tim Farron’s Licence to Roam on Jonathan Fryer’s blog.
As President, with no government job, Tim Farron is best placed to show the Lib Dems’ distinctiveness, says Jonathan.

6. The Police are letting me go to Liberal Democrat Conference by Caron Lindsay on Caron’s Musings.
“It is literally the most fun you could ever have with or without clothes.” – I think Caron means Conference, rather than registering for it… why not give it a try and find out?

7. What do the Liberal Youth Election Results mean? by Andrew Emmerson on The Libertine.
Andrew addresses the low turnout and challenges the new Executive to improve engagement.

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. 2nd year of praise for Nick Clegg: His strengths in his 2nd year of being DPM by Matthew Gibson on Solution Focused Politics.
“Mainstream media praise Clegg over the last year for his skill, bravery in the positions he has taken and his principled stances relating to being a liberal” (Submitted by MatthewJ via LibDig.)

9. 2nd Year of Praise for Lib Dem Ministers: Strengths of Lib Dem Ministers by Matthew Gibson on Solution Focused Politics.
“Another year of following the papers looking for positive news stories about the Lib Dem ministers has produced more praise for Lib Dem ministers. So Vince Cable, Chris Huhne, Steve Webb and Danny Alexander get praise for their efforts.” (Submitted by MatthewJ via LibDig.)

10. 2nd year of Praise for the Lib Dems: Collected praise from the mainstream media by Matthew Gibson on Solution Focused Politics.
“The papers write a fair amount about the Lib Dems these days but not all of it is good but when we look at what the party has been praised for over the last year we can see that there are some things which come out as themes: We are providing good government, we are having a significant influence in government, there needs to be a liberal voice and our party is an effective one” (Submitted by MatthewJ via LibDig.)

11. Education: When did Kenneth Baker become a Liberal hero? by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England.
“Jonathan Calder’s thoughts on Michael Gove’s GCSE announcement: “Just as with health, we Liberal Democrats give the impression that we have arrived in power after 90 years in the wilderness with no higher ambition that maintaining the status quo. We need to do better than that.”” (Submitted by stephenftall via LibDig.)

12. In tribute to the one single scientist in the House of Commons… by Paul Walter on Liberal Burblings.
I, for one, am starting a petition for Julian Huppert to sing “The Elements” at Glee Club this autumn…

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

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