Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 264th 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 (4-10 March, 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. 26 comments on why the Lib Dems are in big big trouble by Neil Monnery on the Rambles of Neil Monnery.
Neil posts the first 26 comments on the article in Comment is Free entitled ‘Why I quit the Liberal Democrats over NHS reforms’ by Graham Winyard.

2. Mori founder Sir Bob Worcester tells me his favourite biased opinion poll questions by Stephen Tall on The Collected Stephen Tall.
…and Stephen agrees.

3. How are the Coalition parties holding up in Parliamentary by-elections? by Richard Clare on A Brief History of Liberty.
Since May 2020, all five have been Labour held seats and all five were successfully held by Labour.

4. Red lines and the detection thereof by Liz Williams on Enter with love into darkness.
Liz is watching internal party democracy carefully.

5. So the Lib Dems are not debating Dropping the NHS Bill, but… by Stephen Glenn on Stephen’s Liberal Journal.
Stephen is “seriously considering a Constitutional Amendment that no motion entering the emergency ballot can pull on the name recognition of any party member over the substance of the arguments.”

6. Jo Swinson a much better attempt at selling our role on Government by Iain Brodie Brown on Birkdale Focus.
On Jo’s appearance on Channel 4’s Political Slot: “The Liberal Democrats are in Government on your side”

7. You know what? Lembit Opik ‘might’ have a point by Lisa Harding on Spiderplant Land.
Lisa (and Lembit) would like to see better communication of the party’s narrative.

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. Pre-conference post by David Matthewman.
“Welfare reform: David takes apart Nick’s ridiculous rear view mirror metaphor” (Submitted by lizw via LibDig.)

9. Student Council Tax Exemption is safe with the Lib Dems by Harry Matthews on Yellow Tinted Spectacles.
Harry rebuts the Telegraph article which claimed Liberal Democrats are calling for students to start paying council tax.

10. Labour caused financial crisis – Ed Milliband by Carl Minns on Thoughts from Hull.
“Ed Milliband wins quote of the day with the shock pronouncement that Labour caused the financial crisis.”

11. Viv Bingham- Radical Liberal and Peace campaigner 1932-2012 by Iain Brodie Brown on Birkdale Focus.
“I know I was not the only one who benefited from his support and encouragement and it is sad that no more young folk will profit from Viv buying them a good meal and listening to their ideas.”

12. Liberal Democrat achievements in government on Mark Pack’s blog.
Edutaining infographic.

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

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