Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 375th 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 (4-10 May, 2014), together with a hand-picked quintet, 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. Are we heading for a wipeout in London? by Rich Clare on A brief history of liberty.
You might think so, looking at the figures from the Mayoral Election two years ago, says Rich. But that was then, this is now.

2. Unexpected Lib Dem bonus courtesy of UKIP by Iain Brodie-Browne on Birkdale Focus.
“I’m over the Coalition, get me a poster” said a regained Lib Dem voter. He can’t be the only one.

3. Everything you need to know about Roger Helmer by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England.
I have taken the liberty of linking to the Roger Helmer tag on the blog rather than the brief post linking to it to save you a click. What you read will make your hair curl. It’s astonishing that a political party thinks it ok that such an individual could be selected to be a parliamentary candidate.

4. Is Jeremy Browne winning the local race? by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England.
There’s a beautiful observation about market forces by Jonathan, too.

5. UKIP cock up. Now there are 17 leaflets with illegal imprints by Jonathan Wallace on Jonathan Wallace.
Hmm. They seem to think that electoral rules are an optional extra.

6. Day 4876: The day Labour admitted they have lost by Richard Flowers on The very fluffy diary of Millennium Dome, Elephant.
An all too rare gem from Richard “It seems wilfully perverse to depict Nick Clegg as naked when you are trying to steal his clothes.” Quite.

7. Labour’s latest misguided attempt to woo disaffected Lib Dems: the Clegg PPB by Nick Tyrone on nicktyrone.com.
They could try giving them the “novel approach of giving them solid reasons to vote for the Labour party.”.

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]. You can also contact us via Twitter, where we’re @libdemvoice

8.  How the NHS persuaded me that rail renationalisation was a bad idea  by Jennie Rigg on Reinforcing the Patriarchy.
“How do we package sensible policies in a way that makes sense to the reactionary pub bore?”. (Submitted by Alisdair via Twitter.)

9. Why time banks imply a different kind of public service by David Boyle on The Real Blog.
An analysis of the effectiveness of time banks – “giving people more confidence in the system” is one benefit.

10. We are on the side of the governed, not the Government by Iain Brodie Browne on Birkdale Focus.
Looking back to Jo Grimond in 1973. (Submitted by Richard via email.)

11. Courageous Clegg by Peter Wrigley on Keynesian Liberal.
Peter applauds Nick Clegg’s opposition to Tory’s knife crime plans, “ for being a beacon of sanity  in the midst of pre-election populism”.

12. A once in a generation opportunity to reform social care by Sal Brinton on Lib Dem Lords.
What the Liberal Democrats have brought to the Social Care Bill.

This week’s bonus comes from someone I miss desperately from our party’s ranks. Mark Thompson takes Labour blogger Tom Pride to task and shows the many Tory policies the Lib Dems have blocked.

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