Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 341st 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 (25-31 August, 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. Council by-election night 3 by Dan Falchikov on Living on words alone.
One seat up this week – and there was  good news for the Lib Dems

2. My column for ConHome: The Tories are going to have to choose if they are going to stay in power. Who’s it going to be, UKIP or the Lib Dems? by Stephen Tall on Stephen Tall.
Stephen lays out a stark choice for the Tories – and says that the mention of UKIP is like “catnip” for them.

3. Asylum mythbusters  by Tim Oliver on Armour Plated Liberalism.
These are from Australia but relevant here, to0.

4. It should have been us  by David Grace on Disgruntled Radical.
Gladstone would have taken a different view than Nick Clegg on Syria.

5. Dave, Ed and Nick, thanks for nothing by Mark Valladares on The view from Creeting St Peter.
“it’s no good talking about the rights of man if, when push comes to shove, you only mean it when it’s easy or convenient.”

6. Clegginar, featuring hot sexy @helenduffett and a question from me. Also info about next webinar by Jennie Rigg on The stony croutons do not agree with her.
Does exactly what it says on the tin!

7. So what now? by Gareth Epps on Gareth Epps.
We need to ensure we have a system that authorises hunanitarian intervention when it is right.

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. It’s time for liberals to armour up by Tim Oliver on Armour plated liberalism .
Why Tim changed his mind and supported intervention in Syria. (Submitted by James Shaddock via Facebook.)

9. That Syria vote and why I’m a Liberal interventionist by Stephen Williams MP on Stephen Williams’ Blog .
Sometimes we need a big stick against those who won’t support human rights, argues Stephen. (Submitted by Jon Rogers via Facebook.)

10. Should making false statements in a referendum be an illegal practice?  by Chris Richards on Moving Forward Together .
Some stark and unpleasant reminders of No 2 AV. (Submitted by Chris Richards via LibDig.)

11. Syrians versus Badgers by Richard Flowers on The very fluffy diary of Millennium Dome, Elephant
Two issues of the week in one post.

12. Liberal Wednesday 6: Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” by Alex Wilcock on Love and Liberty.
Alex looks back and analyses MLK’s speech.

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