Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 364th 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 (2-8 February, 2014), 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. Portsmouth Liberal Democrats get tough with Mike Hancock by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England.
There is more to this than meets the eye. And it will make you laugh.

2. Got a silly idea? Leak it to the FT by Gareth Epps on Gareth Epps.
Just because something appears in the press doesn’t make it policy, warns Gareth.

3. David Laws goes to war over OFSTED and academies by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England.
And he’s right, too.

4. Dawlish and the case for a new rail route to Plymouth by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England.
People were calling for this years ago and nobody took any notice.

5. Amanda Knox and a broken justice system  by Chris Connolly on A Yellow Guard.
And it’s not the Italian Justice system, either.

6. The Why I am IN broadcast by Jonathan Fryer on Jonathan Fryer.
Jonathan thinks that it gets across the simple message that we are better off in Europe very well.

7. River Kennet at record high level at Newbury tonight by Paul Walter on Liberal Burblings.
A worrying time for Paul, like many others this very wet Winter.

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. The World has gone completely mad by Carl Minns on A Liberal View from Hull.
Which of these things will harm a child more? a) Denying them an education b) the occasional bag of mini Cheddars

9. Let’s end FGM by Alex Smethurst on Alex Smethurst.
A post for Zero Tolerance Day. (Submitted by Alex via email.)

10. The remarkable political success of Michael Gove  by Matthew Green  on Thinking Liberal.
Not being “quite as evil as he’s cracked up to be”. (Submitted by Stephen via Email)

11. The Lib/Lab Lie by Andrew Hickey on Sci-Ence! Justice Leak!
All this relative positioning would be unnecessary if we had a decent voting system, says Andrew. (Submitted by Stephen via LibDig.)

12. Tom Watson blames plebgate error on Murdoch paper. Obviously by Charlotte Henry on Digital Politico.
Cos it couldn’t have been his fault, could it?

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