Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 372nd 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 (13-19 April, 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. Two things to note about the Daily Mail’s attacks on the Lib Dems over Cyril Smith by Mark Pack on Mark Pack.
It’s al about Leveson – and check out the Mail’s obituary of Smith. You’d think they’d have mentioned the allegations…

2. Nick Clegg on Cyril Smith: “It was like that when I got here” by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England.
Jonathan finds Nick’s defence wanting, but says it’s David Steel whose actions should be scrutinised.

3. Off at least one fence by Mark Smulian on Liberator’s Blog.
We’ve taken a stance on Europe, but we need to state our case on other issues too.

4. How will Lib Dems explain these at the ballot box next year? by Maelo Manning on libdemchild, aged 14.
We may be creating jobs, but what about food banks?

5. The biggest fruitcake in the East Midlands by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England.
Sadly, not about an actual cake, but the, err, interesting views of another UKIP candidate.

6. “Next Lib Dem leader must come from the Party’s left” by Rhys Taylor on Rhys Taylor.
Rhys comments on a recent New Statesman blog by Mathew Hulbert.

7. A temporary hiatus by David Boyle on The Real Blog.
David’s taking a short break – but he’s working at the Guardian’s comment team so look out for him there.

And now to the five blog-posts that come highly recommended, regardless of the number of Aggregator click-throughs they attracted. To nominate a Lib Dem blog article published in the past seven days – your own, or someone else’s, all you have to do is drop a line to [email protected].

8. I’ve “got the facts” but I still demand we scrap tuition fees by Joshua Dixon on Liberal Insight.
We need to continue the fight for a fair funding model for higher education, says Joshua. (Submitted by Tim Holyoake via email)

9. The real problems a Lib-Lab coalition would encounter by Nick Tyrone on Nick Tyrone.com.
A mixture of personalities, practicalities and vested interests would make it a challenge, says Nick. But the Tories and us are on different planets, too, surely?

10. Would the authentic liberals please stand up? by Alex Marsh on Ales’s Archives.
Another review of Race Plan and sadness that the “more complex ideological roots” of the Liberal Democrats are not being examined.

11. And the next Lib Dem leader should be.. by Sam Phripp on So Sam Said.
Sam channels Tammy Wynette in his response to leadership speculation.

12. PMQ by Wera Hobhouse on Wera’s Blog.
Wera has a very simple solution to the problem of rowdy and unpleasant PMQs sessions

For an Easter bonus, Mark Thompson may no longer be a Liberal Democrat but he’s still posting thought provoking posts. He has been crunching some numbers and has worked out that the Government has been more popular than Labour almost all the time since 2010. He suggests that he’d be worrying if he were them.

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