Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 319th 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 (24-30 March, 2013), 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.South Shields is not Eastleigh by Simon Titley on Liberator’s Blog.
A Labour hold will not be news, says Simon, the performance of the other parties will be.

2. And Nick Clegg’s next slap in the face to the party is…? by Simon Titley on Liberator’s Blog.
After secret courts, it’s not over….

3. It wasn’t Eddie Mair that did for Boris Johnson, it was that it was national TV by Mark Pack.
Apparently he’s quite often in the same state under questioning in City Hall.

4. Bluebell Railway returns to East Grinstead by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England .
And there’s video, too, in this must-read for train geeks.

5. Secret Courts – still not in my name by Richard Morris on A View from Ham Common.
An interesting little snippet on how a particular person voted, too.

6. Why did David Miliband resign? by Richard Morris on A View from Ham Common .
Maybe he should have watched Game of Thrones.

7. Nick Clegg and the politics of immigration  by Simon Titley on Liberator’s Blog .
“Party members are starting to see a pattern of policy making that contradicts their wishes.”

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. Dear The Right Revd and Right Honourable The Lord Carey of Clifton, FRSA FKC by Zoe O’Connell on Complicity.
It’s fair to say that Zoe doesn’t have much truck with George Carey’s claims of persecution and marginalisation.

9. Going down the wormholes through time by David Boyle on The Real Blog .
A fascinating look at how long-lived people link impossibly far apart historical events and figures – with a punchline about a quite amazing woman.  (Submitted by Alex via email.)

10. Stephen the Terrible – the Liberal Commission 1970-71 by Iain Brodie-Brown on Birkdale Focus .
A scandalous look back on the then party’s leadership’s attempt to stitch up the Young Liberals (and a future Cabinet Minister’s embarrassment at same-sex dancing). (Submitted by Alex via email.)

11. Why David Miliband’s resignation is another sign of what is wrong with safe seats by Adam Bell on Decline of the logos.
“if you can get a parliamentary seat purely through moving around to the most appropriate place to get elected, then you’re never exposed to the need to fight for popular support…”

12. Giving up Twitter for Lent by Louise Shaw on From one of the Jilted Generation.
Some food for thought for me, especially as I recently passed my 60,000th tweet.

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