Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 305th 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 (16 – 22 December, 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. Where were the liberals when we needed them? by Lester Holloway on Lester Holloway
Lester wants the party to acknowledge its past failure to understand issues affecting the black community and to do better in future.

2. Tories come fourth in Surrey by-election by Dan Falchikov on Living on words alone.
Oh, and we won.

3. Who do you trust, the Police or Andrew Mitchell? Er, Mitchell by Mark Thompson on  Mark Thompson’s blog.
The Labour Party are a bit behind with the times, notices Mark.

4. @guidofawkes reported to equality watchdog over racism by Lester Holloway on Lester Holloway.
Lester acts after racist comments appear on Fawkes’ blog.

5. Campaigning support for gay marriage by Cicero on Cicero’s Songs.
How technology revolutionises campaigning but the battle of the sexes continues apace.

6.Lib Dems present s**t sandwich without the bread by Chris Smith  on Greenwich Liberal .
Chris is not impressed by the reduction of the redundancy consultation period.

7. If those on benefits think that the Coalition has it in for them… by Mark Valladares on Liberal Bureaucracy.
Mark argues that civil servants are getting a raw deal from a combination of wage freezes/sub inflation rises and increases in pension contributions.

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] This week I have been greatly assisted by Alex Wilcock who writes Love and Liberty. Many thanks to him for his help.

8. “The Lib Dems are no longer liberal” and other stories by Kavya Kaushik on The Libertine.
Liberal Democrats are missing opportunities to highlight our achievements while we argue over policy, says Kavya. “Let’s spend energy attacking the other parties instead of ourselves all the time.”

9. Nick Clegg needs to get crunchy again by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England.
“how Nick needs to rediscover his old self as a thinker and libertarian, because the “centre” is defined by your opponents.”

10. Why I am not a centrist by Siba on Siba the Hat .
“there is neither virtue nor sin attached to being in the centre; and the centre has never been where I thought I was.”.

11. Liberal hero of the week #26 by Stephen Tall on Centre Forum blog.
Why pursuing the truth over ‘Plebgate’ is important – natural justice isn’t just for people you like.

12.New Tory Policy: pretending to protect children more important than protecting children by Zoe O’Connell on Complicity.
Why education is better at keeping kids safe online than faith in the Daily Mail and Internet blocking.

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

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* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings