Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 467th weekly round-up from the Lib Dem blogosphere … Featuring the five most popular stories beyond Lib Dem Voice according to click-throughs from the Aggregator (29 January – 4 February, 2017), together with a hand-picked seven 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. How joining the Lib Dems compares with joining Labour by Mark Pack on Mark Pack.
A lot of people are finding out at the moment, thanks to Corbyn’s cravenness on Brexit.
2. Lib Dems take seat from Labour with enormous 38% swing by Mark Pack on Mark Pack.
One thing that neither Mark nor I pointed out in our pieces on this was that in one ward, we got almost double the vote than we got in the entire Rotherham constituency in the General Election in 2015. Thanks, Kevin, for telling me that yesterday.
3. Conservative Home predicts advances for the Liberal Democrats in May’s local elections by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England.
Well, well. They must be feeling the yellow-hot heat….
4. There is another universe where the Lib Dems are in terrible trouble over Europe by Jonathan Calder on Liberal England.
Something that has occurred to quite a lot of us over the past few months.
5. How much trouble is Labour in in Stoke-on-Trent? by Peter Black on Peter Black.
Not a tiny amount, that’s for sure.
And now to the seven 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
6. Write, recommend and share to thwart Brexit: Above all, protest by Toby McDonnell on Medium.com .
Toby is not taking Brexit lying down
If global norms are coming to an end, and it may be inevitable, does the UK wish to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the free democracies of Europe as a guardian of rights, liberty and justice, or with the quislings who are dismantling these norms to return to 19th Century power-games, with all their murderous consequences?
7. What I did at Federal Conference Committee by Jennie Rigg aged 39 and a quarter on Sad Triffid just wants to dance.
What it’s like to be on a Federal Committee. The footnotes are the best bit:
When I said in the governance consultation that we ought to have it written into the constitution that we would have an biennial showcase debate on trident, at which we’d all fail out and fail to come to agreement, I didn’t think they’d take me seriously FFS.
7Honestly, though, it’s at least a page too long, and full of… Well, the sort of crap we always get in the biennial trident debate. I confidently predict the vote’ll go 48/52% one way or the other, and whichever side “loses” will squeak about unfairness, and neither side will shut up about it, and round we’ll go again in two years’ time. It’s like the lib dem version of EU membership referenda, but more regular.
8. Moral outrage against Trump is distracting people from his incompetence by Matthew Green on Thinking Liberal.
The left is going to have to do better to beat the right both in the US and UK.
9. Defending our views, even when we’re wrong by Rebecca Plenderleith on Some Rambling .
We shouldn’t rush to dismiss the accuser when someone we know is accused of sexual violence.
10. Federal International Relations Committee meets – some personal thoughts by Mark Valladares on Liberal Bureaucracy.
The first meeting of the new Committee brings forth an “existential dilemma” for Mark.
11. Identity – my right, my choice, my decision by Stephen Glenn on Stephen’s Liberal Journal.
Stephen comes under attack from the editor of Conservative Home.
12. A present for my lovely friends on Liberal Democrat Voice by Jennie Rigg on Sad Triffid just wants to dance.
A helpful pro-forma for those of you who want to complain about us.
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