Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 447th 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 (17-23 January, 2016), 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. A welcome Labour council gain by Mark Pack on Mark Pack.
Always good news to see UKIP ousted.

2. Decline and fall: how coalition killed the Lib Dems (almost) by Stephen Tall on Stephen Tall.
Was it worth it? Did we achieve enough in our five years in Government. Stephen answers some tough questions.

3. Conservative voters coming out of the woodwork by Jonathan Wallace on Jonathan Wallace.
Tories aren’t being shy any more, and why that is a good thing.

4. My bizarre experience with Russia Today by Nick Tyrone on NickTyrone.com.
Farce in Millbank.

5. Missing the point and possibly missing the target, but still… by Mark Valladares on Liberal Bureaucracy.
Mark muses on management and its effectiveness.

6. Helping in Hexham by Jonathan Wallace on Jonathan Wallace.
Heading to a neighbouring area to help in a by-election.

7. Why the Tories won and why the Tories’ victory was a brittle one by Mark Pack on Mark Pack.
They have to get the big issues right says Mark in his review of Why the Tories won.

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. Let’s talk about diversity by Charlie Kingsbury  on LY Libertine.
How Liberal Youth is doing something about its approach to diversity.

9.  Boris – stop investing City Hall funds in bank owned by Saudi regime by Jenni Hollis on Jenni Hollis.
Jenni reasonably argues that Londoners’ taxes should not be invested in regime which cares little for human rights.

10. The (Coffee) Chain gang by Andrew Brown on The Widow’s World.
An interesting analysis of the idea that small business good, big business bad as it relates to local coffee shops.

11. New Year, new politics? by Martin Veart on Martin’s View.
On saying what you think rather than saying what’s safe

12. Privilege: less street fighter, more D & D by Jen Yockney on Either/And.
An interesting way at looking at the benefits or disadvantages we can be dealt by society

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