Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 325th 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 (5-11 May, 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. Humiliation for Labour Party in Newbury – beaten into sixth and eighth place by husband and wife team by Paul Walter on Liberal Burblings.
It’s not just the Liberal Democrats who have poor election results.

2. Brighton and Hove Greens attack each other on equal pay by Dan Falchikov on Living on Words Alone.
Local greens attack their council’s plans to equalise pay between men and women.

3. Which Lib Dem seat had the worst local election result? by Dan Falchikov on Living on Words Alone.
Dan’s being analysing the results in held seats.

4. Tory membership plummets by Simon Titley on Liberator’s Blog.
But Simon sees no reason for comfort for Liberal Democrats or any other political party.

5. Perhaps the Liberal Democrats should be grateful for the emergence of UKIP by Rebecca Tidy on Polichic .
After all, they are taking more votes from the Conservatives….

6. What Nick Clegg should have said after Thursday’s elections by Gareth Epps on Gareth Epps.
Time for a change of strategy, says Gareth.

7. Local elections – where the parties go from here by Carl Minns on A liberal view from Hull.
What do we need to do to prepare for 2015?

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. A six point plan for liberal populism by David Boyle on The Real Blog.
One of them involves making tea..

9. Communications Data and the Queen’s Speech by Zoe O’Connell on Complicity
Zoe doesn’t see the need for further legislation – existing powers are sufficient.

10. Why I would abolish the Queen’s Speech by Carl Minns on A Liberal View from Hull
Carl argues that the Queen’s Speech should be abolished for replacing good government with unhealthy, macho “laws as glorified press releases.” Nominated by Alex via email.

11. UKIP councillors by Peter Wrigley on Keynesian Liberal.
It’s time for Clegg, Cameron and Miliband to positively engage in serious debate on Europe, not race to the bottom with UKIP

12. How the Liberal Democrats should take on UKIP by Gavin James on Cllr Gavin James.
“The race to find the toughest meanest and most illiberal policies is a race I would not want to win and would rather we didn’t even enter.” (Submitted by Alex via email)

And, as a wee bonus, Stephen Williams MP has found his inner Liberal Democrat Geek and listed the 106 MPs who have represented the Liberal Democrats since our formation 25 years ago. Be honest, now. were there any you had forgotten? My apologies to Mr David Bellotti.  Stephen did spell Ray Michie’s name wrong, though.

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. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social