Welcome to the Golden Dozen, and our 493rd 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 (15-21 October, 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. Is it eight or nine council by-elections this week? by Mark Pack on Mark Pack.
So frustrating to see the Tories given a free run.

2. If you can hear a wailing and a gnashing of teeth from political types today.…by Jennie Rigg on I spend ages hanging around the Rue Morgue in a gorilla suit and what do I get?
Jennie on what the Boundary Commission report means for her part of the world.

3. What if Theresa May did give the Alistair Campbell speech reversing Brexit? It would snooker Labour by Nick Tyrone on  NickTyrone.com.
Nick argues that there isn’t necessarily a good outcome for Corbyn.

4. Who do you think was the best Lib Dem Leader? by Mark Pack on Mark Pack.
I spent ages ruminating on this one before making my mind up.

5. Monopolies and the dog that didn’t bark by David Boyle on The Real Blog.
UK politics are too slow to tackle problems caused by monopoly power.

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. Retiring lords: should we use age or length of service? by Zoe O’Connell on Complicity.
Zoe looks at the evidence for both.

7. Report of FCC meeting of 19th October 2017 by Jennie Rigg on I spend ages hanging around the Rue Morgue in a gorilla suit and what do I get?
Not a post in which you would expect the words “spank me and call me Gerald” to appear.

8. #metoo: Groped at a business meeting by Jane Chelliah on Feminist Mama.
We’ve learned over the past week that women are demeaned like this as they go about their daily lives.

9. Student speech to be censored at UK universities by Zoe O’Connell on Complicity.
I listened to someone on Radio 4 complain bitterly this week that debate on gender identity issues was being shut down. He didn’t seem to sense any irony in the fact that he was being given a platform on one of the most major and most reputable broadcasters on the planet. Zoe looks at who is being censored and what power they have.

10. Radicals and Democrats and Renewals. Oh my. by Nick Barlow on What we can get away with.
People creating a new movement because they don’t like something about the others – but will they be able to build a common platform in their own new parties?

11. Time to remove the Lib Dem invisibility cloak by Tom King on Never cruel or cowardly.
People keep trying to reinvent what already exists to oppose Brexit.

12. Diary Day 395: Weighing what we have in common against our differences: what no deal means by Jo Hayes on Josephine Hayes.
Any parliamentarian who continues to support Brexit is reckless, says Jo.

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