Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 281st 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 (1-7 July, 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. Lib Dem Baroness Ros Scott has caused me to blow a gasket by Neil Monnery on The Rambles of Neil Monnery.
Neil says bankers are not all bad.

2. Grove Tories lose plot after defeat by Dan Falchikov on Living on words alone.
Kingston Conservatives slurring after their narrow defeat.

3. Ooh look who the New Statesman sneaked onto the cover (no, not Nick) by Richard Morris on A View from Ham Common.
Nick’s not the only Lib Dem on the cover…

4. How often does Vince Cable have to be right before they make him Chancellor? by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England.
High praise from the Indy’s Matthew Norman.

5. Why Liberal Democrats? by Alex Marsh on Alex’s Archives.
“We need to recover a clear sense of the “democrat” in Liberal Democrats,” says Alex.

6. If not Vince – who….? by Richard Morris on A View from Ham Common.
#kenforchancellor ?

7. Jo Swinson tipped for promotion to Cabinet by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England.
On the Sunday papers’ speculation.

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. Gay Pride… but what’s to be proud of?! by Matt J. McLaren on Wisdom and Power.
“Slightly personal blog about all things gay.” (Submitted by Matt McLaren via email.)

9. Clegg: Liberal alternative to ‘dog eat dog’ capitalism by Iain Brodie Browne on Birkdale Focus.
“Launch of the Nuttall report on employee ownership with historical references back to the Yellow Book. Sadly this story has not generated the interest in the media it-and Norman Lamb-deserve.” (Submitted by iainbb via LibDig.)

10. Faith in Nick Clegg rewarded! by Richard Kemp on But what does Richard Kemp think?.
Celebrating City Deals.

11. So here’s an e-petition I won’t be signing by Stephen Tall on The Collected Stephen Tall.
“All party funding from the finance industry must be returned following the regulatory failure at Barclays”

12. European Selection Diary: Day 7 – Hello? Hello? Is there anybody out there? by Mark Valladares on The view from Creeting St Peter.
Mark invites you to apply…

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

Featured? Add this to your blog post!

<a href="https://www.libdemvoice.org/top-of-the-blogs-the-lib-dem-golden-dozen-281-29307.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>